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    New Name for OMV Shareholder

Summary

The name IPIC is disappearing from OMV and EDP shareholder registers and being replaced by another, following a $125bn merger in Abu Dhabi two months ago.

by: Mark Smedley

Posted in:

Natural Gas & LNG News, Asia/Oceania, Europe, Gas to Power, Corporate, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate governance, News By Country, Austria, Portugal, Spain

New Name for OMV Shareholder

One of OMV’s two core shareholdings has been transferred, the Austrian oil and gas group said March 9. The 24.9% stake previously held by Abu Dhabi state-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) has  been transferred to another Abu Dhabi state holding, Mubadala.

This follows the $125bn merger of the former Mubadala with IPIC announced January 21, 2017 by Abu Dhabi’s ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan into a single sovereign wealth fund, officially named Mubadala Investment Company.

Although the transfer was effected on January 19, OMV was only notified on March 7 and it noted on March 9 that a law giving rise to the Mubadala-IPIC merger has yet to be published in Abu Dhabi.

The 31.5% OMV stake held by Austrian state holding OBIB is unchanged; the latter and IPIC had a long-term shareholders’ pact to manage their combined 56.4% majority interest in OMV, which is not expected to be affected by the share transfer.

IPIC’s 4.06% stake in Portuguese utility EDP was similarly transferred in January to Mubadala.

A similar transfer is expected at Spain’s Cepsa and Austrian petchem firm Borealis -- although their websites as of March 10 still listed IPIC as shareholder -- and at other IPIC affiliates worldwide. Cepsa is 100% owned by IPIC, while Borealis is 64% IPIC and 36% OMV-owned.

 

Mark Smedley