The 10% limit on the voting rights effective on any shareholder of Hungarian oil and gas company MOL also applies to the state, therefore the state would not be required to make a public offer even if its ownership stake surpassed 25%, National Development Minister Tamás Fellegi said on Wednesday.
The government consulted the market regulator PSzÁF on the matter before the transaction, he said.
The 10% voting limit in MOL applies to any one shareholder or shareholders’ group, irrespective of its ownership stake.
The Hungarian government agreed to buy a 21.2% stake in MOL from Russian company Surgutneftegas for € 1.88 billion. The transaction is due to be concluded by August 31.
Including the 2.4% stake to be transferred as part of private pension assets to the state and a 1.2% stake held by state-owned MFB Invest, the MOL stake held by the state would surpass 25%, considering the treasury shares held by MOL, business daily Napi Gazdaság reported.
As MOL holds 4.3% of all shares as treasury shares, the three prospective stakes add up to 25.9%, triggering a public offer, the daily wrote.
Under Hungarian legislation, a shareholder may surpass 25% in a company only through a public offer if no other shareholder (or group of shareholders) holds a stake in excess of 10% ─ which is the case with MOL. Otherwise the limit prompting an offer is 33%.
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