NEW YORK: Strathcona Resources Ltd plans to issue a special dividend and increase the liquidity of shares traded should the company’s takeover attempt of MEG Energy Corp fall through.
Buying MEG is not “Plan A” for Strathcona, chairman Adam Waterous said Monday about the Canadian oil company’s C$6.6bil hostile takeover attempt of the rival oil sands producer.
A failure won’t be a major setback, he said.
“If we don’t buy MEG, we’ll probably issue a special dividend of about C$10 a share,” Waterous said. “We’re in a very fortunate situation that our status quo is extremely compelling.”
In May, Strathcona offered about C$23.27 per MEG share in a cash-and-stock offer for the company shortly after agreeing to sell its assets in the Montney shale formation in western Canada in a C$2.8bil deal.
Last month, MEG’s board advised shareholders to reject Strathcona’s bid, calling it inadequate and saying that combining with Strathcona would expose its investors to “inferior assets”.
The board also started a strategic review that may include finding other offers.
A takeover of MEG, which Waterous called “Plan A+”, would be the biggest acquisition yet for Strathcona, which the former investment banker built through a flurry of deals over the past decade.
The deal would make Strathcona a major heavy crude oil producer, adding MEG’s roughly 100,000 barrels of daily output from its Christina Lake asset to Strathcona’s projected 120,000 barrels of daily production.
The proposal would provide MEG shareholders with synergies by being part of a larger company with multiple operations, and a successful takeover would upgrade Strathcona to investment grade and increase the company’s liquidity so that the shares would be included on stock indexes, Waterous said.
Strathcona became a public company two years ago through an all-share purchase of Pipestone Energy Corp, but 91% of the shares were held by Waterous Energy Fund through a series of partnerships. — Bloomberg
