December 28 (SeeNews) - Croatia's financial regulator said on Wednesday the government is not obliged to publish a takeover bid for INA [ZSE:INA-R-A], after prime minister Andrej Plenkovic unveiled a government plan to regain ownership of the oil and gas company.
According to legal regulations, Plenkovic's statement of December 24 does not oblige the government to publish a takeover bid for the stake it plans to buy back from Hungarian energy group MOL, the financial services supervisory agency, HANFA, said in a statement.
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HANFA noted that in September 2008 the Croatian government and MOL had voluntarily published a bid for the takeover of INA, following which the two held among themselves a 92% stake in the company.
Under the act on acquisition of joint stock companies in force at the time, the two shareholders had passed the controlling threshold of 25% of voting shares as well as the ultimate threshold of 75% of voting shares, following which they were no longer under the obligation to publish takeover bids for INA shares in case of further acquisitions, HANFA explained.
Following Plenkovic's announcement that the government plans to buy back MOL's stake in INA, the company shares jumped 9.4% to a closing price of 3,199.59 kuna ($440.3/423.6 euro) on Tuesday on the Zagreb Stock Exchange. The bourse was closed on Monday.
Local media are speculating that the government will have to pay MOL up to 16 billion kuna for its 49.08% stake in INA based on the company's current market capitalisation. Croatia's government currently controls 44.84% of INA, while institutional and private investors own 6.08%.
(1 euro=7.55 kuna)