Private equity fund Samara Capital Partners has agreed to sell its entire 56.32% stake in Asian Oilfield Services Ltd to Mumbai-headquartered energy exploration company Oilmax Energy for close to Rs 30 crore with a loss of over 50%, as per a stock exchange filing.
Following the deal, Oilmax had made an open offer to acquire additional 26% equity stake or 5.8 million equity shares in the company at Rs 32.4 per share.
An email query sent to Samara Capital seeking further information on the development did not elicit any response by the time of filing this article.
Samara Capital had first invested around Rs 28 crore in Asian Oilfield in late 2007, at the peak of the stock market bull-run, to pick around 13.3% stake.
It later hiked its holding with a preferential allotment worth Rs 25 crore in 2010. This also triggered an open offer which did not find many takers. In 2013, the PE firm invested Rs 15 crore in the firm and increased its total holding to 56.32% .
Asian Oilfield is a reservoir imaging firm, offering a suite of geophysical services specialising in land and well seismic services targeted at the onshore oil & gas and mining industries. Its services include 2D and 3D seismic data acquisition, processing and interpretation, topographic survey, core drilling for mineral and CBM exploration, wire-line logging and directional core drilling to target shallow horizons.
Samara Capital was founded by Sumeet Narang, who had earlier worked with Citigroup India across various functions based out of Delhi and Hyderabad, in late 2006. Its portfolio from the healthcare sector includes Mumbai-based medical consumables maker Lotus Surgical Specialities Pvt. Ltd.
Last month, Samara Capital agreed to buy the India business of South African drugmaker Adcock Ingram Holdings Ltd for Rs 151 crore (about $22 million) in cash. Housed under Adcock Ingram Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Adcock Ingram’s India unit makes and distributes pharmaceutical formulations in India.
In February, Samara Capital filed a winding-up petition against Gurgaon-based Guardian Lifecare Pvt Ltd, which runs a retail chain of health and wellness stores, for its alleged non-payments of dues to an associated firm. The dues pertained to cash-and-carry or wholesale supply company Guardian Nutrition that is owned by the PE firm.
ELP advised Samara Capital for the deal, including drafting and negotiating transaction documents.
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