This meant the hostile takeover battle between Centrica and Aberdeen gas producer Venture Production hogged the limelight when it kicked off in March.
It began when Venture shareholders Aberdeen Asset Management and Schroders unexpectedly offloaded their shares to Centrica as it built up nearly a quarter of the Aberdeen company. It has never been properly explained why the investment managers decided to sell when petro-shares were still relatively depressed, but Centrica’s motives were straightforward. The Scottish Gas owner needed more UK electricity and gas production, particularly gas, where it had to rely on the wholesale markets for two-thirds of its supply. Having lost more than two million customers through price wars, it was simultaneously negotiating to buy a chunk of nuclear producer British Energy from EDF to bolster its electricity strength.
Centrica always looked likely to win Venture, despite protests from Venture chief executive Mike Wagstaff and several large founder shareholders that the £1.1bn valuation was low. Probable then became inevitable after 3i sold out in July, raising Centrica’s stake to 29.9%. The English giant could have played softly softly, but instead it launched a full £1.3bn hostile takeover that intimidated the remaining shareholders into selling out. It was all over by August, despite much more shouting and a general consensus that Centrica had won for a song. It will surely become a textbook example of how to go hostile successfully.
If this deal filled the business pages for much of the summer, it was not the only North Sea deal of the year. Edinburgh-registered Premier Oil picked up 40 million barrels of oil reserves when it bought Canadian North Sea explorer Oilexco for £347m in March, while Aberdeen’s Dana Petroleum picked off over-leveraged Canadian explorer Bow Valley Energy and its 11.3 million barrels for £122m a few weeks earlier.
In other sectors, Irish Magners brewer C&C bought Tennents from InBev for £180 million in August. There were fears at the time over how possible restructurings of packaging activities could hit Tennents’ Glasgow Wellpark brewery and its 300 staff, but these have yet to be borne out.
In October, Powerleague, the Paisley-based five-a-side football company, was taken over by Luxembourg-registered private equity firm Patron Capital for £42.5m. The company had been labouring under debts of £36.4m.
Edinburgh merchant bank Noble Group then announced it was selling out to London-based Execution earlier this month for an undisclosed amount. Although chairman Ben Thomson insisted the deal was a merger and not a rescue, Noble’s woeful 2008 included a £9.5m pre-tax loss and a £4.6m bailout by financial services firm Arch.
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