Burmans acquired 14.3% stake in Eveready Industries via open offer

Kolkata: The Burmans of Dabur have acquired 14.3% shares in the open offer made to public shareholders of Eveready Industries India Ltd, taking their total shareholding in the dry cell battery maker to 38.3%.

Confirming the development, Mohit Burman from the Burman promoter family said the open offer has concluded. “Our shareholding has now gone to 38.3%. We are happy with the outcome. We got 14.3% shares in the offer,” he said.

With this, the Burman family has become the dominant largest shareholder in Eveready and will now seek promoter status from the company’s board and seek regulatory approval for it. The family has said they will operate Eveready and Dabur as two separate entities.

The open offer started on June 3 and ended on June 16 whereby the Burman family had offered to buy Eveready shares at Rs 320 per share. However, the offer was not fully subscribed since the Burmans had made an open offer for purchasing 26% shareholding in Eveready.

The family was purchasing Eveready shares from the open market as a personal investment since 2020 and till recently had notched up almost 24% in the company.

As per the open offer document filed by JM Financial in stock markets, the acquisition of equity shares will help the Burman Group to have control of the target company and become its promoter with substantial holding and voting rights.

It also said at present there are no intentions by Burmans to dispose of or restrict any assets or investments of Eveready or any of its subsidiaries through sale, lease, encumbrance, reconstruction, restructuring or otherwise, other than in the ordinary course of business.

On Thursday, the Eveready share closed at Rs 311.65 falling by 1% on the Bombay Stock Exchange when the benchmark Sensex declined by 1.99%.