PERTH (miningweekly.com) – South Africa-focused Sunbird Energy on Wednesday confirmed that it had received a takeover offer from South African power infrastructure company Glendal Power.

The company told shareholders that a trading halt had been necessitated on July 27, after the company received an indicative nonbinding proposal from Glendal offering A$0.18 a share for Sunbird’s shares, valuing the company at some A$25-million.

The offer price represented a 44% premium on Sunbird’s spot price, and a 53% premium to the 60-day weighted average price of the company’s shares.

The proposal was subject to a number of conditions, including due diligence, third-party financing arrangements and Glendal achieving a minimum acceptance of at least 51% of all Sunbird shares on issue.

Sunbird noted that while there was no guarantee that a firm takeover bid would be made by Glendal, the Sunbird board was considering the proposal and was engaging with Glendal to clarify the terms of the indicative offer, assist the suitor in completing its due diligence investigations and to determine whether to enter into and negotiate terms for a binding implementation agreement.

In the meantime, Sunbird was in discussions with its financier to refinance the Umbono loan, as a A$900 000 repayment was due on August 10. The company was also in negotiations with a number of investors with existing debt facilities in place regarding the provision of a further debt facility.

The company was also pursuing both short-term funding and potential transactions with a number of other parties.

Sunbird was currently developing its Ibhubesi natural gas project offshore of the Western Cape, and had already executed a term sheet with power utility Eskom to deliver up to 30-billion cubic feet a year of gas to the Ankerlig power station, near Cape Town, for a period of up to 15 years.