AMSTERDAM: Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy smaller rival BG Group for $70 billion in the first oil super-merger in more than a decade to close the gap with the world’s largest oil firm US ExxonMobil.
In a joint statement, the two firms said Shell would pay a mix of cash and shares that would value each BG share at around 1,350 pence. It said this represented a premium of around 52 per cent to the 90-day trading average.
Britain’s BG had a market capitalisation of $46 billion as of Tuesday close, Shell was worth $202 billion while Exxon, the world’s largest oil company by market value, was worth $360 billion.
A successful deal would give Shell access to BG’s multi-billion dollar projects in Brazil, East Africa, Australia, Kazakhstan and Egypt, including some of the world’s most ambitious liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects.