eServe may cost Citi more now

Thursday, 15 July 2004, 19:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Citigroup’s open offer for Mumbai-based BPO company eServe International has been postponed. eServe has not, however, sent any notice to the stock exchanges about the change of date from July 12, when the offer was supposed to have opened. eServe officials did not respond to any queries, but according to sources, a new open offer date along with new pricing will be announced shortly. Citigroup has a 44% stake in eServe and had announced its intention of buying back other shareholders in the company and delisting its shares from the stock exchanges. ET had earlier reported that the institutional investors were seeking a higher price for submitting their stake to Citigroup for delisting. The stock was up on Monday and touched a high of Rs 849 after opening at Rs 835. It closed at Rs 836, around 1% up. The stock price of eServe has been quoting above the offer price of Rs 800 for more than a month now. Citigroup had announced on April 12 that it wanted to acquire all the outstanding shares in the company. The stock price of the company which was moving downwards and had touched a 52-week low of Rs 510, started moving up since then. By the end of March ‘04, the stock price was around Rs 600. After the price for the open offer was given at Rs 800, its price ballooned to Rs 800.
Source: IANS