Hungary Mol settles option deal, signs new one with UniCredit

Mol extends share option agreement

Mol has announced on Tuesday that on the basis of an agreement concluded on Wednesday with UniCredit Bank AG that the option rights regarding 5,380,496 Mol Series “A" Ordinary shares under the share option agreements concluded between UniCredit and Mol on 27 January 2015 are expected to be cash settled in respect of all the Shares on 12 February 2016. The strike price of the options is USD 41.43762.

Simultaneously Mol and UniCredit concluded a new share option agreement regarding up to 5,380,496 Shares.

As a result of the new share option agreement, Mol will acquire American call options and UniCredit will acquire European put options on 12 February 2016.

The maturity of both the call and the put options is 11 months, such maturity being subject to yearly extensions, up to a maximum of two extensions of one year each.

Not an unusual deal

Option deals are commonly linked to share placement transactions at Mol, which had been started around the OMV takeover story. ING holds 5% of Mol ordinary shares outstanding, whereas UniCredit has a 5.15% package and Credit Agricole 2.04%. Their total share of Mol ordinary shares outstanding is over 10%.

Ownership structure

As the chart above also attests, Mol does not have the most transparent ownership structure of Hungary’s listed companies. As regards the Mol packages parked at friendly institutions and the company’s ownership structure Mol Chairman-CEO Zsolt Hernádi told local weekly Figyelő a few months ago that these do no harm to shareholders, as if dividend is paid on these papers it is reinvested in the company.

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