BOC Group to relaunch delisting offer for Linde India

Global industrial gases major BOC Group is making a second attempt to delist its Indian arm Linde India after a failed bid to buy back shares from the public in January.

Earlier, the delisting effort was triggered by the decision to merge Praxair Inc and Linde AG globally which is currently being executed. Linde also needs to divest some of its Indian assets to comply with the Competition Commission of India's directives, which hasn't been completed yet.

BOC Group, along with Linde Holdings Netherlands BV and Praxair Inc, had launched an open offer to acquire 25% fully diluted equity shares of Linde India and its successes would have led to the delisting of the Indian arm, a leading player in gases like oxygen, which is also used for medical purposes.

The exercise involving price discovery through the reserve book building process turned out to be a failure then.

The offer price, discovered in terms of Sebi delisting regulations, was arrived at Rs 2,025 which was rejected by the BOC Group and other promoter entities.

Accordingly, the promoters didn't acquire any shares tendered by the public and the scrip remains listed.

"In view of the failure of the delisting offer, the open offer process has commenced again and the acquirer and persons acting in concert have filed a draft letter of offer with Sebi as per regulation 5A of the Sebi (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations 2011," Linde disclosed in its annual report released on Monday.

BOC Group has written to the Indian subsidiary on April 8 informing them of the appointment of a firm for determining the valuation of the shares.

To give effect to the merger as per the directive of Competition Commission of India, Linde has to divest assets including two air-separation units at JSW's Bellary facility: an 855 tonne-per-day plant owned by a joint venture of Linde and another 1,800 tpd plant fully owned by Linde.

"The company is currently in negotiations with potential buyers and expects that the fair value of the assets less sale costs is likely to be higher than their aggregate carrying value of Rs 2403.66 million," Linde said in the report.

ANOTHER ATTEMPT

• Rs 2,025 – Offer price discovered earlier as per Sebi delisting regulations
   
• 855 tonne-per-day – Linde's air-separation unit at JSW's Bellary facility
   
• 1,800 – tpd plant fully owned by Linde