About 1.6 L shares traded on exchanges
Shares of Schneider Electric Infrastructure ended up 0.7% on Monday, after gaining more than 3% during intra-day trade amid heavy volume as the parent company began its acquisition of R516.9 crore worth of shares as part of its ongoing open offer. This was on a day when the benchmark BSE Sensex rose about half a percentage point.
As many as 1.59 lakh shares were traded on the BSE and the NSE on Monday compared with an average daily volume of 81,500 shares on both the exchanges since the beginning of September 2012.
As per the offer that commenced on January 4, 2013, and closes on January 17, Schneider Electric Singapore, the parent company, had announced the acquisition of 6.22 crore shares (26% stake) at R83.10 per share in September 2012. While the stock has gained nearly 2% since January 3, the scrip has declined nearly 19% from its 52-week high of 104.70 on September 18, Bloomberg data show.
Promoters of Schneider Electric hold 73.4% stake in the Indian entity, whereas individual shareholders hold 10.33%, venture capital funds around 8.7%, mutual funds 4.04% and corporate bodies 2.56% in the company, stock exchange data show. Market experts said the open offer is part of the company’s plan to adhere to existing Sebi norms. Alstom and Schneider Electric have launched an obligatory acquisition offer of up to 26% of the share capital of Alstom T&D India by Alstom and of up to 26% of the share capital of Schneider Electric Infra by Schneider Electric.
Alstom SA (Alstom) had announced that following the acquisition in 2010 of Areva T&D India through Areva T&D by Alstom and Schneider Electric SA (Schneider Electric) in consortium, the transmission and distribution activities of Areva T&D India have been divided between Alstom T&D India and Schneider Electric Infra. The last stage of the separation imposes the change from a common control of the two companies to a unique control by Alstom or Schneider Electric.
In September 2011, the market regulator had notified new rules on takeover, whereby an entity buying 25% stake in a listed firm would have to make a mandatory offer to buy an additional 26% shares from public.
