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Gold/Mining/Energy : Petrokazakhstan Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: forecaster who wrote (1672)5/31/2001 8:37:10 AM
From: cooliemon  Respond to of 2357
 
forecaster:

do you think this whole thing between caih and hhla has been a staged event? these guys are so smart that they could have concocted this idea to pit the good guys against the bad guys to create interest in the stock, all the while knowing full well that nlg and hhla were going to get together....some interesting coincidences, 1) paul king was hired by hhla to be vp of some division, then all of a sudden he's working with nlg within a matter of months 2) if one took the names off the annual reports, the blue color is almost identical to each other(using the same printer?) 3) these boys are filing their public documents with SEDAR on exactly the same days.....i know this is all wild speculation, but, with the way the hhla story has gone over the years, nothing would surprise me( a great 2nd year MBA elective would be the story of "THE HURRICANE".....COOLIEBAYEV



To: forecaster who wrote (1672)6/1/2001 6:11:45 AM
From: cooliemon  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 2357
 
forecaster:

do you suppose the $11.36 is what bernie will agree to?...coolie

June 1, 2001

Canadian Driller Fights Hostile Kazakh Bid

By BIRGIT BRAUER






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LMATY, Kazakhstan — Doing business here is not for the fainthearted, as Hurricane Hydrocarbons, a Canadian company with all its operations here, has been learning. On top of the usual developing- country headaches, Hurricane has suffered from being too strong a magnet for unwanted attention.

After being driven almost to bankruptcy by a local rival, having its refinery stormed by commandos acting on behalf of a disgruntled former employee, retaking the plant with its own armed security force and fending off charges of tax evasion and contamination of oil wells with bacteria, Hurricane may have thought it had seen it all.

Hardly. Hurricane was shocked again when a major shareholder, Central Asia Industrial Holdings, an offshore affiliate of Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan's leading banking group, announced a hostile takeover bid last month.

"The bid came as a surprise," said Bernard Isautier, chairman of Hurricane, which has headquarters in Calgary, Alberta. "This offer is totally inadequate. The price is extremely low."

The current trouble for Hurricane started when a drawn-out dispute with the Chimkent refinery, the main customer for the oil Hurricane produces here, nearly bankrupted the company in 1999. Hurricane got out of that scrape by acquiring 88.8 percent of the refinery for stock.

"It was the only way to save the company at the time," Mr. Isautier said. But the deal put 30 percent of Hurricane's stock in Central Asia Industrial's hands — "a very stiff price to pay," Mr. Isautier said.

Hurricane's finances have recovered, with revenue shooting up to $523 million last year from $155 million in 1999 on the back of a 30- percent rise in oil prtoduction.

Central Asia Industrial's offer is for 18.4 million shares of Hurricane, enough to give it control, for $6.66 a share. Mr. Isautier said an independent appraisal by J. S. Herold put the shares' fair value at $11.36 apiece.

It could be worse, one Western oil executive based here observed. "At least it is an offer done in the marketplace," he said.

Other analysts said the company was caught in a tug of war among Kazakh business factions to win dominance of the refining industry.

Hurricane's board decided to fight the takeover offer by issuing a $200 million special dividend to shareholders in the form of a debenture, a move that would oblige a buyer to use its own cash rather than Hurricane's assets to pay for a takeover. Hurricane's stock has since risen to $8.48 a share, above the bid price.

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