JSW Energy has acquired a 31.56 per cent stake in South African Coal Mining Holding Ltd (SACMH), raising the Mumbai-based company’s total shareholding in the entity headquartered on Johannesburg’s suburbs to 93.27 per cent.
JSW Energy chief financial officer Pramod Menon, while informing this on Thursday, recalled that the agreement between the two companies featured a put option last year when his firm bought certain SACMH shares. “The promoters decided to move on. Hence, we exercised the put option,” he added.
Subsequently, JSW Energy, through its wholly-owned stepdown subsidiary, went on to acquire Royal Bafokeng Venture Proprietary Ltd’s 50.20 per cent stake in Royal Bafokeng Capital (RBC).
With this, the total shareholding of JSW Energy in SACMH stands at 93.27 per cent, against 61.71 per cent at the end of the September quarter, Menon revealed.
Last year, JSW Energy had, in its bid to secure coal for its power plants in India, bought a 49.8 per cent stake in RBC, which holds 54.06 per cent stake in SACMH. The company also bought 34.79 per cent stake in SACMH directly from the open market, at 30 cents per share.
At that point in time, on April 4 this year, an appeal committee of South Africa’s securities regulation panel filed a case against JSW Energy in the South Gauteng High Court of that country to protect the rights of minority shareholders.
The panel conducted a “price test” to safeguard the minority shareholder interest in the deal -- and came up with a ruling that JSW Energy has to offer 38.6 cents per share to the small shareholders.
JSW contested the order, pointed out the CFO. On November 22, the court ruled in favour of JSW Energy and said the comparable price offered to the minority shareholders of SACMH was 30 cents a share. At the end of the last quarter, SACMH had mined 225,000 tonnes of coal and sold 119,000 tonnes at $111 per tonne. “The margin continued to remain under pressure,” Menon said.
, “One reason was higher stripping ratio on account of development of new pits. Also, there are transportation bottlenecks, resulting in higher logistics cost.”
