EPSI’s takeover offer values Rocksource at $82M

EPSI AS, a company managed by HitecVision, has launched a takeover offer for Norwegian oil company Rocksource.

According to a Rocksource filing to the Oslo Exchange,  EPSI has launched a mandatory offer to acquire all the issued and outstanding shares in Rocksource at a price of NOK 6.00 per share. Based on 98,371,500 issued shares in Rocksource, the Offer Price corresponds to a market capitalization of the company of around NOK 590 million ($82.25 million).

On 3 December 2014, the EPSI announced that it had acquired shares by which it had passed one-third ownership in the Company, by which the criteria for a mandatory offer had been met. In the same announcement, the EPSI stated its intention to make a mandatory offer for the remaining shares of the Company. More precisely, EPSI purchased 7,159 shares in Rocksource at a price of NOK 6.00 per share. As a result, EPSI’s ownership in Rocksource has increased to 32,796,659 shares, constituting 33.34 per cent of the shares and votes in Rocksource.

As for the Mandatory Offer period, it runs from and including 10 December 2014 to 16:30 hours (CET) on 21 January 2015.

Future plans

If the offer is successful, EPSI has said that it intends to focus on the strategic and operational opportunities ahead and will continue the operation and development of Rocksource along the lines of the current strategy. It adds that there is no plan to reorganize or make changes in the current operations of the Rocksource.

EPSI has also promised that the offer will not have any legal, economic or other work-related consequences for the Company’s employees and there is currently no plan to make changes to the Rocksource’s workforce following completion of offer or changes that may have legal, economic or other work-related consequences for the Rocksource employees.

As for the target, Rocksource, it is an oil and gas exploration and production company, which mainly holds exploration licenses on the Norwegian continental shelf. The company recently participated in the Pil & Bue discoveries in PL 586. Rocksource estimates the discoveries to combined have reserves of 95-175mmboe. Two appraisal wells are planned for 2015. In addition to its footprint on the NCS the Company holds acreage positions on the UK Continental Shelf and in the US Gulf of Mexico. The company has around 35 employees.