Investors have reacted cautiously to the Adani Group's Rs 31,000 crore open offer for a 26% stake in ACC and Ambuja Cement. According to exchange data, 4,061,184 shares were tendered out of the 48.95 million ACC shares the group offered to buy as of Friday, the last day of the open offer. This represents 8.3% of the shares that were supposed to be tendered. The group paid Rs 934 crore for the shares at an offer price of Rs 2,300. Ambuja Cement received 727,076 shares, accounting for 0.14% of the 516.3 million shares offered with a payout of approximately Rs 27.9 crore.
“The open offer of Ambuja and ACC saw limited participation from the holders as the market prices are trading way higher than open offer prices,” stated Abhilash Pagaria, head of Edelweiss Alternative and Quantitative Research. “So all the special situations traders chose to sell it on screen instead of tendering as that’s a more viable option,” he added.
Pagaria believes that many long-term shareholders will remain invested in either of the names as long as they have faith in businesses. On the BSE, Adani Enterprises shares were trading flat at Rs 3,450.
On August 26, Gautam Adani's family-owned Endeavour Trade and Investments made an offer to buy a 26% additional stake in Swiss firm Holcim's Indian listed entities Ambuja Cements and ACC from public shareholders.
The Sebi-mandated offers resulted from the acquisition of Holcim's 63.1% stake in Ambuja Cement and 4.48% stake in ACC, as well as Ambuja Cement's 50.05% stake in ACC. In May, Holcim signed a binding agreement for the transaction, marking the Adani Group's first foray into the cement sector.