Negotiations for United Energy Group to acquire the UK National Grid's natural gas are still ongoing.
However, their financing plan has made progress.
The background is that in Block 1 of the Kolo offshore oil field, two other production wells have started producing oil. Currently, their four oil wells have a daily output of 50,000 barrels of crude oil, and more oil wells are being drilled.
At present, there is no oil refining industry in Kolo, so they need to export crude oil directly. The current international oil price is around US$50 per barrel, which means Kolo Oil Company earns nearly US$2.5 million a day...
You know, as the number of completed wells in Block 1 continues to increase, COSL has already deployed three drilling platforms to conduct oil drilling here at the same time, and has contacted nearby to rent two platforms...
Once their domestic personnel arrive and become familiar with the equipment, there will be 5 drilling platforms carrying out drilling operations simultaneously in the entire Block 1.
According to the plan of Kolo Oil Company, they plan to produce more than 1 million barrels of crude oil per day within this year, which means a daily income of more than 50 million US dollars...
A byproduct of the cooperation with COSL is that in order to achieve the proportion of local oil workers in Kolo employed in the agreement, in addition to assisting Kolo Oil Company in recruiting a new batch of oil workers, they also cooperated with the human resources department of Kolo Oil Company on the outskirts of Loti to build a training base.
After all, offshore oil operations are different from those on land, and require more technical training, including various marine escape, protection, well control, hydrogen sulfide prevention, oil and gas firefighting, etc.
For basic drillers, it won't be a big problem to learn work skills slowly on the job. For example, China initially adopted the "master-apprentice" approach. However, in terms of safety, more systematic training is really needed.
It is also because of this series of positive news about Kolo Oil that the share price of United Energy Group, which owns a 30% stake in it, has risen slightly again and has reached around 12.5 pounds.
Correspondingly, their financing this time went more smoothly.
This time, United Energy Group offered 5 billion pounds to acquire the natural gas business of the British National Grid.
Therefore, the total scale of financing they carried out was over 5 billion pounds.
Of this, 2 billion pounds were subscribed by investment departments of various banks including Barclays Bank, as well as some investment institutions.
Another billion pounds was divided up among British companies and families.
This includes the 200 million pounds invested by the Butt family.
The above 3 billion pounds of funds were all used to purchase convertible bonds of United Energy Group. According to regulations, they can choose to convert their convertible bonds into common shares of United Energy Group at any time within two years based on the average stock price of United Energy Group on that day.
Another £2 billion was contributed by the West African Group, which borrowed directly from Standard Chartered Bank and subscribed to new shares of United Energy Group at a price of £12.5.
United Energy Group will issue 160 million new shares to West Africa Group at a price of £12.5.
In this way, United Energy Group has raised 5 billion pounds in funds.
Of course, it will take some time for the funds to arrive, but these funds themselves are not necessarily used to acquire the natural gas business of the British National Grid.
As for the so-called truth and falsehood, whether this will be regarded as a smokescreen for the acquisition of Unocal still needs to wait for subsequent developments to make adjustments.
On the Unocal side, Barron has learned from Goldman Sachs that they have begun contacting CNOOC to discuss providing financing for their acquisition of Unocal.
This time when CNOOC acquires Unocal, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase will be their financing parties in the United States.
It's likely they'll make their first offer for Unocal in the near future.
"West Africa Group chose to directly subscribe to new shares of United Energy Group?"
It can be said that in this round of financing of United Energy Group, only the West African Group chose to subscribe to their new shares at a price of 12.5 pounds, and other local British capital chose to purchase the convertible bonds of United Energy Group.
It can also be seen that they still believe that after nearly a month of rise, the current stock price of United Energy Group is still at a high level.
But this does not mean that they are not optimistic about the future development of United Energy Group, otherwise they would not be willing to participate in this financing.
All we can say is that they believe that after the market calms down, there may be slight fluctuations in the short term and stock prices may fall.
At that time they can complete the debt-to-equity conversion at a lower price.
After all, no one's money comes from the wind. If they can get more benefits, they don't mind waiting for a while.
This time, the convertible bonds have a debt-to-equity conversion period of two years.
In their view, there will always be a time when the stock price is at a low point within the next two years.
However, Earl Bute was aware of the close relationship between the West African Group and Barron, and now that he saw that they had chosen to directly subscribe to new shares of the United Energy Group at a price of 12.5 pounds, he had some doubts.
"After all, we need to give other investors confidence, so subscribing to new shares at this price also means that they recognize the current share price."
Barron's explanation made sense, but as to whether it was true or not, Earl Bute could not tell for the moment.
Argent Real Estate Group has also decided to start the IPO process.
However, before that, they are also preparing to further "optimize" the company's financial performance so that it can be better reflected in the stock price in future listings.
In terms of their residential areas, although the low-rent housing promised by the government and the luxury apartments on their own land were built almost at the same time, it is obvious that the construction progress of those luxury apartments was much faster than that of the low-rent housing.
By now, the luxury residential area, including the "King's Mansion", has been on sale for some time.
The sales situation is quite good, but because the overall renewal plan of King's Cross has just entered the second phase, some supporting facilities are not yet particularly complete. Therefore, if you want to sell all of them, you will have to wait for some time.
But they also have a way. Because of their confidence in the future development of this area, DS Asset Management Company and a fund owned by the Butt family jointly invested in the establishment of a real estate agency. They paid a certain proportion of the purchase price to Argent Real Estate Group and bought most of the remaining properties in the form of pre-sales.
What is shown in the accounts of Argent Real Estate Group is that most of the high-end residences in the first phase have been sold, and the sales situation is excellent.