ABG Shipyard-promoted Western India Shipyard (WISL) on Tuesday said the former holds 60.26% stake in the company, up from 19.69% earlier. The announcement to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) comes days after ABG Shipyard said it completed the acquisition of debt-ridden WISL by acquiring a further 40.57% stake in the company.
The public now holds 13.04% in WISL while the rest is held by mutual funds, financial institutions, private corporate bodies and NRIs. WISL, the largest domestic composite ship and rig repair company in the private sector, has been a loss making entity since its inception in 1996.
In December 2008, WISL filed the scheme of arrangement and compromise with the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court and had Rs 228.10 crore of secured liabilities as on October 1, 2006. SK Mutreja, whole-time director & CEO of WISL said, ?WISL has now become an ABG Group company. With the technical support of ABG, we will look forward for big and quality repair orders for both ships and rigs.?
WISL’s current order book position at the end of third quarter (Oct-Dec 2010) is about Rs 88 crore from the eight vessels under repairs , including the large orders from Indian Navy and the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) where the repairs are progressing as per schedule. The current order book of ABG Shipyard stands at Rs 12,000 crore. ABG Shipyard CEO Dhananjay Datar has said that by this acquisition of shares, ABG completes the acquisition of WISL. ABG is fully committed to provide the marketing and technical support to WISL to build quality order book.
WISL shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) closed at Rs 16.05, down 7.12% on Tuesday after touching a 52-week high of Rs 18.90 on Monday. ABG Shipyard shares on BSE closed at Rs 304.55, down 2.95%.