Norway's government has reached its goal of increasing its ownership in national oil company StatoilHydro ASA to 67 percent by slowly buying 19.3 billion kroner ($2.7 billion) worth of shares, the oil minister announced Thursday.
The government saw its share in the company diluted to 62.5 percent after state-controlled Statoil ASA took over the oil division of domestic rival Norsk Hydro ASA in October 2007 to form StatoilHydro.
Norway's government founded Statoil as a fully state-owned company in 1972, then started the partial privatization in 2001, with parliament setting a lower limit of 67 percent for state ownership. That limit would guarantee its controlling interest in the company.
To meet these requirements, the government announced plans to increase the StatoilHydro stake in June 2008 by using surplus oil wealth to buy shares.
Norway has about 2 trillion kroner ($280 billion) of oil wealth invested in its so-called Government Pension Fund-Global.
Oil Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said the state needs to have a controlling interest in Norway's largest company and the most important player on its offshore oil and gas fields.
A news release said the stock purchases were handled by 16 different brokerage houses over a seven-month period. StatoilHydro shares fell 2.9 percent to 113.90 kroner ($15.93) in morning trading on the Oslo bourse, a slightly larger decline than for the exchange's all-share index.
Stavanger-based StatoilHydro, with a staff of about 31,000 people in 40 countries, is the key producer on the offshore fields that make Norway a major oil and natural gas exporter.
source yahoo
The government saw its share in the company diluted to 62.5 percent after state-controlled Statoil ASA took over the oil division of domestic rival Norsk Hydro ASA in October 2007 to form StatoilHydro.
Norway's government founded Statoil as a fully state-owned company in 1972, then started the partial privatization in 2001, with parliament setting a lower limit of 67 percent for state ownership. That limit would guarantee its controlling interest in the company.
To meet these requirements, the government announced plans to increase the StatoilHydro stake in June 2008 by using surplus oil wealth to buy shares.
Norway has about 2 trillion kroner ($280 billion) of oil wealth invested in its so-called Government Pension Fund-Global.
Oil Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said the state needs to have a controlling interest in Norway's largest company and the most important player on its offshore oil and gas fields.
A news release said the stock purchases were handled by 16 different brokerage houses over a seven-month period. StatoilHydro shares fell 2.9 percent to 113.90 kroner ($15.93) in morning trading on the Oslo bourse, a slightly larger decline than for the exchange's all-share index.
Stavanger-based StatoilHydro, with a staff of about 31,000 people in 40 countries, is the key producer on the offshore fields that make Norway a major oil and natural gas exporter.
source yahoo
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