Shareholders of Dragon Oil have rejected ENOC’s bid to buy out the remaining shares of the company it did not previously own.
The offer of 455p a share failed to get approval from the required 75% of shares voted at a London meeting.
ENOC itself was not allowed to vote with its shares, meaning a total of 12.1% of shareholders were able to block the deal by rejecting the offer.
Previously the largest of the major shareholders Baillie Gifford, Noster Capital and Carmignc Gestion had announced they would be rejecting the offer. ENOC is now unable to sell its shares in the company until 2011.
The result will come as a blow to ENOC’s ambitions to become an integrated upstream and downstream oil company and means the company will not gain access to Dragon’s US$1 billion cash pile. Small shareholders at the meeting berated directors for the apparent lack of activity in using the cash.
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