Home > 31 Oct 2005 Dubai ’poised to make £3b buyout bid for P&O ports’

31 Oct 2005 Dubai ’poised to make £3b buyout bid for P&O ports’

by Open-Publishing - Friday 24 February 2006
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Trade-Exchange Rates International

Gulf News - 31 October, 2005

Dubai Ports World, the world’s sixth-largest port operator, is set to make a £3 billion bid this week to take over P&O, Britain’s biggest ports and ferries group, the Sunday Times News Service reported from London yesterday.

The news service said Dubai Ports World (DPW), owned by the Dubai government, had hired Deutsche Bank to advise it on a bid.

It quoted banking sources in Dubai as saying on the weekend that a preliminary meeting between the two sides was likely to take place within days.

Dubai Ports had contacted banks about financing a bid for the British ports operator. A stock-exchange announcement confirming its interest may be made today, it added.

Both, Dubai Ports and Deutsche Bank, said they had no comment to make.

DPW, formed only a month ago from the combination of the Dubai Ports Authority and Dubai Ports International, has interests spanning 15 terminals across 13 locations.

It is keen to acquire P&O to strengthen its position in the rapidly consolidating global ports industry. P&O owns 27 container terminals and had logistics operations in 18 countries. It also has port operations in Africa and Australia as well as operations in India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

The news service said that an approach from DPW was almost certain to set off a bidding war for P&O, with Temasek, the Singaporean state investment firm, and Danish shipping group AP Moeller-Maersk among other likely predators.

Dubai Ports World is expected to try to persuade P&O’s management that the long-term investment required for modern port development would be best done by a private rather than a quoted group.

A takeover would mark the end of a long restructuring process at P&O which has included the disposal of its 25 per cent stake in the shipping firm P&O Nedlloyd, its golf-club and exhibition-centre assets, and the sale of its refrigerated logistics arm.

The future of P&O’s ferries business has also been the subject of speculation in recent months.

Earlier this year, Dubai Ports International paid $ 1.142 billion in cash, before working capital and long-term debt adjustments, to buy the international terminal business of CSX.
hmmm sounds like the same people who financed 911 and the short selling of airline stocks , a b buzzy krongard director of cia clandestine operations on 911 and former ceo of deutsche bank, aka the "shark"

Forum posts

  • W aides’ biz ties to Arab firm

    BY MICHAEL McAULIFF
    DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

    "WASHINGTON - The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

    One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose agency heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan’s cruise ship terminal and Newark’s container port.

    Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush’s cabinet.

    The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World’s European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

    The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the 9/11 hijackers.

    "The more you look at this deal, the more the deal is called into question," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said the deal was rubber-stamped in advance - even before DP World formally agreed to buy London’s P&O port company.

    Besides operations in New York and Jersey, Dubai would also run port facilities in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and Miami.

    The political fallout over the deal only grows.

    "It’s particularly troubling that the United States would turn over its port security not only to a foreign company, but a state-owned one," said western New York’s Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee. Reynolds is responsible for helping Republicans keep their majority in the House.

    Snow’s Treasury Department runs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which includes 11 other agencies.

    "It always raises flags" when administration officials have ties to a firm, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) said, but insisted that stopping the deal was more important.

    The Daily News has learned that lawmakers also want to know if a detailed 45-day probe should have been conducted instead of one that lasted no more than 25 days.

    According to a 1993 congressional measure, the longer review is mandated when the company is owned by a foreign government and the purchase "could result in control of a person engaged in interstate commerce in the U.S. that could affect the national security of the U.S."

    Congressional sources said the President has until March 2 to trigger that harder look.

    "The most important thing is for someone to explain how this is consistent with our national security," Fossella said."

    Originally published on February 21, 2006

    http://www.nydailynews.com/front/st...