Halo Notes Delay in Tullow Dutch Takeover

UK-listed explorer Hague and London Oil (Halo) has admitted its takeover of Tullow's Dutch North Sea E&P assets, announced April 10, will take longer than planned. It announced April 10 that it would buy the Tullow interest, based on an enterprise value for the latter of about $5mn.

Halo said August 1 it had made "significant progress" on acquiring the Tullow Dutch asset, which had net production of 2,900 barrels of oil equivalent/day in 2016, and had "materially advanced ...its discussions with Engie regarding the provision of structured finance for the transaction." A year ago Engie agreed to offtake Halo's European gas production volumes.

However, given the assets to be acquired are bigger than Halo, the deal constitutes a reverse takeover requiring it to secure shareholders' approval.

That also requires a new document seeking for re-admission to trading on London's AIM for the enlarged group. "In order to allow for an orderly completion of all the commercial and legal discussions, the parties have agreed to an extension of the timetable with the aim to publish the Admission Document by 1 October 2017," said Halo, noting that trading of Halo shares on AIM remains suspended until then. 

Mark Smedley