The battle for the control of China Gas, one of the mainland's largest piped-gas suppliers, with 151 projects, is heating up as a key July 6 deadline looms.
Since a consortium comprising ENN Energy, a smaller rival of China Gas, and Sinopec, China's No 2 oil firm, revealed an unsolicited US$2.2 billion bid for the company on December 12, two other parties have unexpectedly entered the contest by mopping up China Gas shares.
State-owned conglomerate Beijing Enterprises Group and an alliance of London-listed Fortune Oil and ousted China Gas managing director Liu Minghui are racing to raise their stakes and are now China Gas's second-largest and largest minority shareholders, respectively.
The Fortune Oil alliance, which has amassed a 17.65 per cent stake since December, was determined to kill the ENN-Sinopec offer and would keep buying China Gas shares 'for a while', a person at Fortune Oil told the South China Morning Post.
Fortune Oil executive vice-chairman Daniel Chiu Tat-jung, a son of property tycoon Deacon Chiu Te-ken, has personally forked out more than HK$700 million in recent months on behalf of the alliance. Previously, Daniel Chiu and Liu had spent another HK$700 million on China Gas shares.
'We won't take the ENN/Sinopec offer, which is outrageously low, and the price has not been raised at all,' the person at Fortune Oil said. 'Chiu is buying more and more China Gas shares in the market, now and in the future.'