Allen & Gledhill is advising PTT, Thailand's top energy company on its $960 million offer for Singapore-listed Sakari Resources, which is being represented by WongPartnership.
Reuters reports that this deal is part of the Thai oil and gas firm’s plans to expand into coal to meet rising regional demand for the fuel. Hungry for growth, PTT, Asia-Pacific's third-largest listed oil and gas firm by market value, aims to invest over $11 billion in energy assets in 2012 to 2016, and has said it wants to boost coal output by more than six-fold by the end of the decade.
PTT, through unit PTT Asia Pacific Mining Pty Ltd, already controls about 45.27 percent of Sakari Resources, which operates coal mines in Indonesia. Deutsche Bank, which has made the offer for the remaining shares on behalf of PTT, is also being advised by Allen & Gledhill.
Advising PTT are Allen & Gledhill partners Song Su-Min and Lee Kee Yeng, while the WongPartnership team includes partners Andrew Ang, Annabelle Yip and Dawn Law. The Allen & Gledhill team advising Deutsche Bank is being led by partner Christopher Koh.
PTT has said it is keen to boost its coal output to 70 million tonnes in 2020 from 11 million tonnes this year. The Sakari deal is, however, only one of many irons its has in the fire. Its key upstream unit, PTTEP, is preparing to pay $2.2 billion to acquire Cove Energy, which holds a position in huge natural gas fields discovered off the Mozambique coast. To finance the deal, it plans to raise $3.1 billion in Thailand's biggest equity sale ever.
Ranajit Dam is Southeast Asia Editor at ALB. Follow us on Twitter: @ALB_Magazine.
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