EDF teams up with former rival for EcoSecurities bid

The long-running takeover wrangles surrounding Ireland-based carbon offset specialist EcoSecurities became ever-more convoluted this week after one of the bidders seeking to acquire the company, EDF Trading, announced it was pulling out of the acquisition process and opting instead to team up with a former rival.

Having seen previous attempts at an acquisition rebuffed by EcoSecurities, the trading arm of energy giant EDF announced it was no longer going to table a bid directly, but would instead team up with rival bidder, Pedro Moura Costa.

Moura Costa, the former EcoSecurities co-founder and president, is currently in the process of launching an unsolicited purchase of EcoSecurities via his Guanabara holding company.

If the Guanabara bid is successful, EDF has agreed to acquire EcoSecurities' pre-2012 Certified Emission Reduction (CER) carbon credit portfolio, a proportion of its due diligence contracts, and its contracted CER sales.

For its part, EcoSecurities noted the change in tactics by EDF, but said it remains opposed to the Guanabara buy-out.

"The Board also notes Guanabara's intention to make a cash offer of 77 pence per share, announced this afternoon and which it considers to be wholly inadequate, and strongly advises shareholders to take no action," the company said in a statement. "The Board also notes that neither it nor its advisers has had any contact with Guanabara or its advisers."

Commenting on the tag-team manoeuvre by EDF, financial analysts KBC said the move could serve to strengthen Moura Costa's takeover bid.

"We can see the attraction of this manoeuvre to both parties," the analyst firm said in a statement. "In addition to avoiding a competitive auction, it would give EDF Trading access to most of the pre-2012 carbon portfolio of ECO at a discount to buying the whole business. It would give Guanabara an operational entity on which to build a continuing carbon business."