Emirates National Oil Company bid for Dragon Oil wins support

Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) increased its offer yesterday to buy Dragon Oil to 800 pence (1,137.3c) a share, winning support from minority owners including billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Advisors UK that rejected ENOC’s offer in June.

Dragon Oil, which is listed on both London and Dublin stock markets, has a large shareholding base in Ireland.

Elliott and Baillie Gifford, which hold a combined 13.1% stake in Dragon Oil, have accepted the new price, ENOC said.

ENOC had offered to buy the 46% of Dragon Oil it didn’t own for 750p, or £1.7 billion (€2.41bn) on June 15.

Shares of Dragon Oil rose 1.5% to 733p on Friday in London. They have gained 44% since March 13, the day before the takeover talks with ENOC were disclosed.

Last week ENOC had extended the deadline for minority shareholders to accept its takeover offer by a month after falling short of its initial acceptance target. ENOC had won about 54% of Dragon Oil after offering an improved offer of 750p per share for the explorer.

ENOC had previously said it was confident in achieving this target, but an estimated 16% of Dragon’s minority shareholders – including Dublin-based Setanta Asset Management – had opposed the offer price. ENOC also recently blasted one minority investor’s view that Dragon may outdo its own production target of 100,000 barrels of oil per day from its main asset in Turkmenistan over the next five years.

Bloomberg and Irish Examiner staff.