DANA takeover bid - KNOC makes preliminary approach.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/

Korean-based sources said KNOC was willing to pay a “significant premium” for Dana shares, which would typically be around 40 per cent – or £16.45 based on Dana’s closing price on Thursday.

Alphaville 'KNOC, South Korea’s national oil company, is exploring a $1.5bn offer for the FTSE 250 oil explorer Dana Petroleum'

Wow! 1072p. I can't see Dana's board rolling over for that.

Alphaville 'KNOC, South Korea’s national oil company, is exploring a $1.5bn offer for the FTSE 250 oil explorer Dana Petroleum'

Indeed, should be £

Muppets at FT-A can't even get that right.

KNOC confirm their approach:

http://www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=201007021023357249O&fe=1

Interesting to see that BoA/ML appears to be advising them......Merrill's note of 24th June said:

What about M&A?
In recent days, unconfirmed press reports have pointed to Dana as a
consolidation candidate. As we have previously indicated consolidation is a likely
theme in the industry and we believe that Dana offers an attractive combination of
assets (N. Sea, Egypt, W. Africa) that could appeal to a number of participants:
utilities, independents, NOCs. Its 250mmboe of 2P reserves (post PetroCanada
deal), 154mmboe of contingent resources and exploration potential could make
Dana a material addition to any of the above. We believe the limited success in
the exploration campaign makes Dana potentially more vulnerable to an
approach. .

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6610ZQ20100702

"We had approached Dana but no concrete progress has been made," said the KNOC source, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

A KNOC spokesman declined to comment.

KNOC, with a mission to more than double South Korea's oil reserves this year to 300,000 barrels per day, has said it wanted to complete a major deal in the first half of the year but has failed to do so.

I guess given the key shareholders not making up >30% this will have to be a friendly T/O unlike Danas neighbours Venture where Centrica were able to get over 30% eaisly buy buying out 3 major shareholders .So assuming a deal can be done the price could be favourable:

Dana major investors:
Schroder Investment Mgt. 13.76%
Legal & General Inv. Mgt. 4.23%
BlackRock Inv Mgt (UK) 3.20%
William Blair LLC 3.19%
Baring Asset Mgt. 3.09%

FH