Turkish investor renews bid to buy power producer
KARACHI: The investment bank overseeing a Turkish investor’s effort to acquire more than 51% of the shares and control of publicly traded energy company Tri-Star Power Ltd. announced on Thursday that it is extending the deadline for submitting a public announcement of offer (PAO) by three months.
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Alpha Beta Core Solutions Ltd stated that even though the initial 180-day window for submitting the PAO expired on September 9, the prospective acquirer’s due diligence procedure was still ongoing.
Tri-Star Power operates a 10-megawatt plant on the grounds of Image Pakistan in SITE, Karachi, and rents it out to customers in the same industrial group to generate and distribute electricity.
Aykut Alikuu is a high-net-worth individual from Turkey with expertise in e-commerce and the sale of locally sourced goods in the Gulf. The current management has launched a legal battle to prevent his takeover on the grounds that he was acting “in concert with others” and was “illegally accumulating” shareholding while engaging in share price manipulation.
The Sindh High Court ruled that the situation should remain as it is as a result of the lawsuit the management brought against the prospective purchaser.
One of the parties to the transaction claimed that the company’s management was “stonewalling” the acquisition bid in contravention of the rules. The power plant’s actual power output is unknown because it produces electricity as needed. Prior to July 1, 2021, the corporation assessed a per-unit fee to its electricity customer.
According to the company’s financial statements for the months of January through March, petrol supplies remained suspended for those three months, generating no income. Net profit for the first nine months of 2022–23 was Rs4.6 million, a decrease of 33.5 percent from the same period last year.
On March 20, a Turkish investor formally complained to Pakistan’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SECP) about the target company for failing to provide “relevant and material information” needed for due diligence.
The local electricity company was instructed to “ensure meticulous compliance” with the takeover requirements and to give the prospective purchaser relevant information for due diligence in a subsequent correspondence, which Dawn was able to view on April 4.
On March 9, the Turkish investor announced its plan to acquire the majority of Tri-Star Power’s shares. After a week had passed, the target business claimed the prospective buyer was driving “undue movement” in the share price.
The electricity generator claimed that a 531 percent spike in its share price over the course of eight months was the result of “manipulation by the acquirer either directly or indirectly through the persons acting in concert.”
After the public statement of intention, it claimed, the share price had a “continuous declining trend.” The envisioned buyer is not a stakeholder in the target business. He is a citizen of Turkey. and doesn’t even have a CDC (Central Depository Company) account,” it continued.
The company additionally asserted that the purchaser is “merely acting as a frontman on behalf of others in order to bypass the regulations” and lacks the resources and net worth necessary to complete such a transaction.
