A week after getting the permission from the Competition Commission of India to go ahead with the acquisition of Religare Enterprises, the Burman family acquired additional 4% stake in the company on Wednesday through open market transactions today through its through three entities – MB Finmart, Puran Associates and VIC Enterprises at around Rs 234 per share. The overall stake of Burmans in Religare Enterprises now stands at 25.18%.
While MB Finmart and Puran Associates acquired 4.4 million shares of Religare Enterprises each through open market transactions at price of Rs 233.98 per share, VIC Enterprises also acquired 4.4 million shares at Rs 233.93 apiece.
“We are happy to inform that we have increased our stake to 25.18% in Religare Enterprises Limited (REL). We reiterate our commitment towards the acquisition of REL. We now eagerly await the remaining approvals necessary to consummate the Open Offer and look forward to co-operation by the REL Board,” said Mohit Burman, member of the Burman family in a statement.
Shares of Religare Enterprises ended 4.5% higher at Rs 236.70 apiece on the BSE today. Burman Group, with 21.25% stake before the incremental acquisition was the largest shareholder in Religare Enterprises and had made an open offer to acquire additional 26% stake in the company in September.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) had last week given its approval to entities controlled by Burman family to acquire 5.27% stake in Religare Enterprises, and a subsequent open offer to buy another 26% in the company.
The acquisition of additional shares further tightens the group’s hold over Religare Enterprises, as against that of Board of Director of the company, led by Chairperson Rashmi Saluja, who are battling over the legality of the open offer.
Soon after the open offer to acquire Religare Enterprises was made by Burmans in September, top level sources at Religare Enterprises said they will appoint independent consultancies to form two valuation reports to ascertain the fair value of the company’s shares as they believed the offer from Burmans was low.
Speaking to FE, Dabur India Chairman Mohit Burman had said representatives of the Dabur family had met with Saluja on September 20 to inform about the family’s intention to launch an open offer after which shares of the company were sold by members of the Board. “Accordingly, we thought that it is right time to send a letter to the Board about our intention,” he had said.