near enough to true Wei, nexus held 19.9% at last call of aza and AEL hold 53.1% of aza, so 73% all up. But your 38% is way off, 100% minus 73% = 27% available liquidity on ASX. No doubt aza and AEL are in discussions with other Bass Straight major oilers and possibly AWE I reckon, after reading this article [below] in the Australian by Nigel Wilson, which says to me, nexus pulled out because they could not find the money to pay for aza.
Note well: Tony Strasser from aza, said anzon would "restrategise"!
Share value row kills Anzon merger
Nigel Wilson, Energy writer | May 06, 2008
A TWO-YEAR effort to improve long-term value for Anzon Energy shareholders has failed, with the company's $648 million merger with Nexus Energy collapsing yesterday.
Anzon chief financial officer Tony Strasser accused Ian Tchacos of bullying tactics after the companies failed to agree on the value of Anzon's shares.
Nexus in January offered 71c a share in cash and $1.04 a share in Nexus scrip, while Anzon shareholders were promised a special dividend of 7c a share.
The offer valued Anzon nominally at $1.75 a share.
Nexus told the stock exchange the decision to terminate came as a result of the companies not being able to agree that revised merger terms were necessary because of the results of the Basker-6 and the Basker-6 sidetrack-1 drilling program in Anzon's Basker field in Bass Strait.
But for Mr Strasser, the drilling results did not kill the deal -- it was that Mr Tchacos would not offer fair value for Anzon's shares.
After borrowing $100 million to build up a blocking stake in Anzon, Mr Strasser claimed Mr Tchacos used the stake to try and force Anzon directors to accept a lower value for the company.
"Anzon is not a $1.20 a share company, it's at least $1.50," Mr Strasser said.
Nexus wanted to buy Anzon to gain production from its Basker-Manta oil venture, seeking cash flow before the start-up of its Longtom project.
Underlying their differences, Anzon earlier yesterday reported production test results from the Basker-6 sidetrack indicating that two of three identified oil-bearing sand zones in the well had been tested and had flowed more than 8000 barrels of oil a day to the surface.
"Our view is that at the very least the latest drill results put us back to where we were before Basker 6 came in under expectations," Mr Strasser said.
"And, of course, since Nexus announced the proposal in January the oil prices has risen to record highs that have been sustained. That suggests there was no erosion of value."
In fact, some analysts suggested yesterday the drill results might lead to a reassessment of the geology of both the Basker and Manta fields leading to higher reserves calculations for the innovative Anzon-operated BMG project which has Beach Petroleum (30 per cent), Itochu (20 per cent) and Sojitz (10 per cent) as partners.
Mr Tchacos responded that as far as Nexus was concerned there were no sour grapes.
"It's just that we couldn't get a meeting of minds on value and in today's climate that means funding is underwritten by reserves," he said.
After the collapse of the proposal Nexus will continue to operate as a stand-alone company and Anzon will "restrategise," Mr Strasser said.
The failure of the deal means that Nexus retains 19.9 per cent of Anzon's equity while Anzon holds 11.6 per cent of Nexus.
Anzon began its long drawn out dance with Nexus two years ago after identifying that it needed to expand beyond its single asset, its stake in the Basker/Manta/Gummy project, now reduced to 40 per cent.
It proposed a takeover with Nexus and built up its equity stake before that possibility was aborted.
Anzon then effectively put it itself out to tender and selected ARC Energy as its preferred buyer only for that concept to fail when ARC's share price collapsed.
Then Nexus came in last August with an offer that was intended in part to remove Anzon's equity stake.
After yesterday's announcement Anzon's shares fell by a record, dropping by as much as as much as 35c, or 24 per cent, to $1.11 before closing at $1.165. Nexus shares gained as much as 8.6 per cent to $1.635.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23651060-5005200,00.html
AZA
anzon australia limited
