OMV AG, central Europe’s biggest oil company, has agreed to take over Turkey’s biggest fuel retailer for 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to tap faster growth in emerging markets.
OMV will buy Dogan Sirketler Grubu Holding AS’s 54.17 percent holding in Petrol Ofisi AS, boosting its stake to 95.75 percent from 41.58 percent, OMV said in a statement yesterday after markets closed. Before completion, likely within three months, Petrol Ofisi will distribute $488 million in dividends to shareholders, with $203 million going to OMV, 265 million to Dogan and $21 million to free-float investors.
OMV is expanding in emerging markets to tap faster demand growth. Petrol Ofisi has 3,140 gasoline stations in Turkey, where oil consumption rose 5.8 percent in 2008, according to BP Plc. That compares with a 0.1 percent decline in Austria.
OMV wants to maintain a “strong investment grade credit rating and therefore does not exclude raising equity as one of the available funding options,’’ it said in the statement.
OMV has held a stake in Petrol Ofisi since 2006, when it bought 34 percent of the company for $1.06 billion.
“Turkey represents a strategic bridgehead to the resource- rich Caspian Region and the Middle East,’’ the company said in the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Zoe Schneeweiss in Vienna at [email protected].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at [email protected]
via OMV Takes Over Turkey’s Biggest Fuel Retailer for $1.4 Billion – Bloomberg.
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