AsianOil: Senex agrees to Posco takeover

Australia’s Senex Energy has agreed to be acquired by Posco International, the trading arm of South Korean steelmaker Posco, for AUD852.1mn ($606.8mn).
Senex approved the deal after Posco raised its offer for a third time, to AUD4.60 ($3.30) per share. The South Korean company initially offered AUD4.00 ($2.85) per share, subsequently hiking this to AUD4.20 ($2.99) and AUD4.40 ($3.13) per share before arriving at the current price. Senex shareholders will also receive an AUD0.05 ($0.04) per share dividend for the six months up to December 31.
In a December 13 statement, Senex said that the offer price represented a 25% premium to its average 30-day share price on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and a 34% premium to the average 90-day share price up to October 15.
Senex is a producer of coal-bed methane (CBM), known locally in Australia as coal-seam gas (CSG), and supplies the country’s East Coast market, as well as the Gladstone LNG (GLNG) export project. Posco owns oil and gas stakes in Southeast Asia and is seeking to expand into other markets.
If Senex shareholders approve the transaction, it will close in late March 2022. Posco also intends to sell a 49.9% stake in Senex to Hancock Energy if it succeeds in taking over the company. However, that deal is not a prerequisite to the Posco-Senex transaction going ahead.