The stock of Peak Energy Services Ltd. (TSE:PES) went into a higher orbit yesterday after the company announced accepting a take-over bid by Clean Harbors, Inc. Peak informed about signing a definitive acquisition agreement with Clean Harbors, under which the latter will buy all of the outstanding common shares of the company.
Clean Harbors will pay $0.95 for each Peak share – this represented a 28% premium over the shares’ closing price on Tuesday that was $0.74. Now things have changed. Yesterday, PES gained almost 26%, touching the mentioned offer price of $0.95, which is also a 52-week high for the stock. In the end of the session, the shares dropped a bit and finished at $0.93.
The take-over bid is to be approved by at least two-thirds of the shareholders at their Annual Meeting scheduled to be held in May. The total transaction value of the fore-mentioned offer is $200.5M, including the assumption of $35M Peak net debt by Clean Harbors. The company’s Board of Directors has unanimously approved the acquisition arrangement.
The turnover was amazing – more than 8.3M shares changed hands. This is a record in the company’s trading history. Obviously, the take-over bid arouse investor interest. It is interesting to see whether the surge of the stock will continue in the coming days. In case this happens, we may see very soon a new acquisition offer for a price higher than the one discussed above.
Peak is unsurprisingly a subject of a take-over interest. The company provides drilling and production services both in the conventional and unconventional oil and natural gas industry in the oil sands regions of Western Canada. The corporation also offers water technology solutions to a variety of customers throughout North America.
This March, Peak was happy to announce rising earnings and a positive net income of $1.18M for the last quarter of 2010. For 2010, total revenue neared 153M – a rise of 33% over the corresponding figure in 2009.
Investors are on the wait for the future development of the take-over story around Peak Energy.
