Hungarian oil and gas company MOL has secured all necessary financing until the end of 2010, stated its CEO Gyorgy Mosonyi on Thursday, adding that the company is confident in its financing position.
"We will not need new financing until the end of 2010. We recently secured a loan with very favorable terms amounting to 2.1 billion euros, of which we will use just over 800 million euros for the purchase of shares in INA," said MOL’s CEO Gyorgy Mosonyi to Reuters on the sidelines of a press conference."We do not see any problems in the upcoming period, neither from the perspective of financing nor from the side of capital expenditure or acquisitions. From a financing position, we are very secure," Mosonyi further explained. After increasing its stake in the Croatian oil company to 47.15 percent last week through a public offering, MOL has become the largest individual shareholder of INA. The Hungarian company purchased 2.215 million shares at a price of 2,800 kuna as part of a transaction that valued INA at 28 billion kuna.
The Hungarian company now intends to start negotiations with the Croatian government, which holds a 44 percent stake, regarding a share swap to acquire a majority stake. Mosonyi also stated that the two sides are not under pressure to quickly reach an agreement, despite a significant drop in MOL’s share prices recently. "We are not subject to time constraints and we are confident that we will reach an amicable solution in due time," he said. MOL’s shares weakened by 5.2 percent at the start of trading on the Budapest Stock Exchange on Thursday, trading at a price of 11,280 Hungarian forints (61.75 US dollars). The main index of that exchange, BUX, was down by 7.1 percent. (H)
