Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc reached agreement to acquire Eland Oil & Gas PLC from Lombard Odier Asset Management Limited, Helios Investment Partners LLP, Richard I Griffiths and others for approximately £360 million.
The deal is subject to Eland's shareholders voting at the court meeting, either in person or by proxy, representing at least 75%. The other deal conditions include, court approvals, Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources approvals, Nigerian Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission approvals. The deal will also be subject to the applicable requirements of the Code, the Panel, AIM and the Financial Conduct Authority. The transaction has been unanimously approved by Eland's board. As of November 20, 2019, the court meeting and the general meeting convened in relation to the proposed scheme, respectively all the proposed resolutions were dully passed by the requisite majorities. As of December 12, 2019, the court has sanctioned the scheme of arrangement. The scheme is expected to become Effective in late 2019. As of October 28, 2019, the effective date of the scheme is on December 17, 2019 with a longstop date on April 15, 2020. The cancellation of admission to trading of Eland Shares on AIM is on December 18, 2019.
Allan Taylor, Mukund Dhar, Philip Broke and Ben Wilkinson of White & Case LLP and Olaniwun Ajayi LP are providing legal advices to Seplat. Rob Hamill, Kate Ball-Dodd and Andrew Stanger of Mayer Brown International LLP, Stronachs LLP and Streamsowers & Köhn are providing legal advices to Eland. David Waring, Edward Banks and Gent Kadare of Evercore acted as financial advisors and Richard Crichton, Michael Nicholson and David McKeown of Peel Hunt LLP acted as Nominated Advisers and Joint Brokers to Eland. Luke Spells, Shreyas Bordia and Tom Reid of Citi acted as Financial Adviser and Joint Corporate Broker to Seplat.