By Dan Lonkevich
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, won’t raise its C$45 ($38.25) a share offer for the stock it doesn’t already own in Shell Canada Ltd., Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said today in an interview.
“We think it’s a full and fair offer, and the only offer to shareholders,” Voser said from Shell’s offices in New York. The offer is 37 percent higher than the price of shares of Shell Canada the day before the offer was made, he said.
Shell Canada shareholders have until 8 p.m. Toronto time on March 16 to tender their shares. The offer is conditional on the acceptance of more than 50 percent of the outstanding shares of Shell Canada.
The Hague-based Shell initially bid C$40 a share for the 22 percent of Shell Canada it doesn’t already own. The C$45 bid is the midpoint between a fair-value range of C$42 to C$48, according CIBC World Markets. The offer values the outstanding shares in Shell Canada at C$8.7 billion.
Some shareholders, including Jarislowsky Fraser, which owns 29 million shares of Shell Canada, have said they won’t tender their shares at the higher price.
Voser declined to comment on the outcome of the tender offer.
Shell has ample projects to pursue its strategy of increasing production by drilling more wells, he said.
“We are managing 140 projects in design phase, some of which have been postponed.” Those could be restarted should the tender offer fail.
He declined to comment on whether Shell might consider other acquisitions.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Lonkevich in New York at [email protected] .
14 March 2007
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