The Hindu : Business : S&P makes open offer in Crisil

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 16, 2005

Business

Business

S&P makes open offer in Crisil

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, FEB. 15. Standard & Poor's (S&P), a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and the leading provider of independent research, ratings and indices, today announced that it intends to make a voluntary conditional open offer to all the shareholders of Crisil Limited, India's leading provider of credit ratings, financial news and risk and policy advisory services, to increase its equity shareholding. If the offer is accepted, S&P will become the majority shareholder of Crisil.

The McGraw-Hill Companies, on behalf of its S&P division, is seeking to purchase up to 3.53 million shares subject to a minimum response of 2.64 million shares at a price of Rs. 680 per share.

The conditional offer, if accepted to the minimum level, together with the existing S&P stake of six lakh shares would result in S&P owning a little over 51 per cent of Crisil shares as on December 31, 2004, making it Crisil's majority shareholder. If the offer were accepted in full, then S&P would own a little over 65 per cent.

"A majority position will enable S&P to integrate Crisil more fully into our operations for the benefit of the Indian and international marketplace," said Kathleen A. Corbet, President of S&P. "Given the proprietary nature of our methodologies and systems, we are now limited in how far we can extend our relationship with Crisil. Should the open offer be successful, we expect Crisil with its talented analytical pool and strong management to become an integral part of S&P's global network and allow for collaboration across a broad spectrum of activities,'' she said.

PTI reports:

When contacted, Crisil Managing Director, R. Ravimohan, said the board would soon meet to decide on the open offer made by S&P, which now holds 9.48 per cent. "We received the intimation early today and would shortly convene a board meeting to consider it,'' Mr. Ravimohan added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business