MCFL takeover battle; Zuari, Deepak raise open offer prices

Intensifying the battle for acquisition of Vijay Mallya's fertiliser firm MCFL, Deepak Fertilisers today raised its open offer price to Rs 93.60 per share aggregating to Rs 288.41 crore.
Hours after the revision of open offer price by Deepak Fertilisers, rival Zuari group in association with MCFL'S original promoters UB group, revised their open offer price to Rs 81.60 per share aggregating to Rs 251.44 crores to buy additional 26 per cent stake of MCFL.
The shares of the MCFl were trading at Rs 88.10 per share in the late afternoon trade already breaching the upper circuit limit.
Deepak Fertilisers had launched open offer to buy additional 26 per cent stake in MCFL in April this year at Rs 63 per share following which Zuari and UB group joined hands in May and launched open offer for same number of shares at Rs 68.55 per scrip.

The battle for control of Mangalore Chemicals heated up again after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) cleared an open offer launched by Zuari Group firms on September 4. The CCI had cleared the open offer of Deepak Fertilisers on August 19.
After this, both parties have announced that the open offer will start on October 1 and close on October 17. The last date for upward revision of the offer size or price was September 25.

At present, Deepak Fertiliser holds 25.31 per cent stake in MCFL, whereas consortium of Zuari group companies have 16.43 per cent stake and Vijay Mallaya's UB group 21.97 per cent stake.

The Zuari group along with Vijay Mallaya's UB group needs about 12 per cent additional stake in MCFL to take control of the company while at the same time Deepak Fertilisers would require another about 25 per cent stake in the MCFL.
Zuari Agro Chemicals had also entered into an agreement this year to use Mangalore Chemicals's facilities for contract production.
The battle for MCFL between Deepak Fertilisers and Zuari Group was triggered in April 2013 when the latter bought about 10 per cent stake in MCFL through open market.
Later, Deepak Fertilisers acquired 24.46 per cent stake in MCFL in one go in July 2013. After this, Zuari group had increased its stake to 16.43 per cent in the same month.