EDC Moves to Become Private Company
October 08 2015 - 9:10AM
Dow Jones News
LONDON—Russia's largest onshore oil driller is moving to become
a private company in another sign of the toll a prolonged price
slump is taking on the oil-services industry.
Eurasia Drilling Co. said Thursday that unnamed managers and
"core shareholders" had made an undisclosed offer to take the
company private, as it faces a challenging Russian economy,
uncertainty from the effects of Western sanctions and geopolitics,
and oil prices that nearly halved in the past year.
EDC said the offer was $10 a share, which would value the
company at about $1.5 billion. The executives and shareholders
already own much of the company and would buy shares worth about
$430 million.
An independent committee tasked with considering the offer said
Thursday it hadn't made a decision. EDC shares fell in London
trading.
EDC had hoped selling a stake for $1.7 billion to Schlumberger,
the largest oil-services company in the world, would help it ride
out a period of industry turmoil. But Schlumberger last month
walked away after waiting more than six months for Russian
antimonopoly officials' approval.
That forced EDC to switch gears. The company said a plan to
change the business "would best be achieved by taking the company
private, so it can sustain itself through the expected and long,
difficult market conditions."
"Given all these challenges, the management of EDC believe they
require maximum flexibility to manage the business, which is best
facilitated by being a private company," EDC's statement said.
A person close to the situation said taking the company private
would reduce costs involved with being a publicly listed company,
such as salaries for board members and expenses related to holding
board meetings.
EDC is listed in Moscow with a secondary listing in London.
The move comes amid a tumultuous period for EDC.
Last week, EDC reported a more-than halving in revenues and a
sharp drop in profit this year after one of its biggest Russian
customers scaled back drilling efforts amid the slump in oil
prices.
Western governments have targeted parts of the Russian oil
industry over the situation in Ukraine. The sanctions have slowed
activity in some areas, such as onshore shale oil drilling and
offshore Arctic oil exploration, and limited finance options for
some projects.
In January, Schlumberger had offered to buy a 45% stake in EDC,
with an option to buy the rest of the company at a later date. The
offer was accepted by EDC and originally expected to close by the
end of March. But the deal got bogged down over concerns in Moscow
that EDC's activities could be affected if Western sanctions
against Russia were tightened.
EDC operates the largest fleet of onshore drilling in Russia and
is vital to operations at the country's oil fields. Russia is
highly dependent on oil and gas, the sales of which account for
around half of its federal budget. The country recently reported
production of 10.74 million barrels a day in September, a
post-Soviet record.
Other large oil-services companies have been forced to make
major changes as energy firms squeeze them for cheaper contracts.
Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Inc., two of the world's biggest
services firms, are merging, while Schlumberger has laid off tens
of thousands of workers.
Write to Selina Williams at selina.williams@wsj.com and Alex
MacDonald at alex.macdonald@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 08, 2015 08:55 ET (12:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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