Vedanta extends Cairn offer
VEDANTA pushed on with its offer to take over 20 per cent of Cairn India yesterday, despite the Indian government’s decision on Wednesday to further scrutinise the deal.
Vedanta and Cairn have extended the offer period by a month to 20 May to try and get the deal out of the doldrums, after more than seven months of wrangling with the government over royalty payments.
Cairn agreed in August to sell most of its subsidiary Cairn India to Vedanta for up to $9.6bn (£5.9bn).
Cairn and Vedanta shares continued to slide yesterday, with the former closing down 2.3 per cent at 445.9p and the latter losing 2.6 per cent to £24.29.
Analysts at UBS said in a note yesterday the ongoing delays to the purchase, which could be India’s biggest oil and gas deal, could cut up to seven per cent from Cairn’s valuation.
But analysts at Oriel and Evolution were more optimistic, predicting that the deal will go through, with the delays having little impact on Cairn’s other operations.