This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 3, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: Maybank Investment Bank Bhd (Maybank IB) has resigned as principal adviser to CLIQ Energy Bhd’s proposed acquisition of its qualifying asset (QA) and rights issue with warrants effective Feb 6.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, the special purpose acquisition company said it will deliberate on the next course of action and will make an announcement in due course.

CLIQ had received a letter from Maybank IB on Jan 30 serving notice of the investment bank’s resignation as principal adviser.

Last Friday, CLIQ announced that the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) had returned its application for the proposals to buy a 51% stake in a special purpose vehicle that will host Phystech Firm LLP’s two onshore Kazakhstan’s oilfields, and the cash call to purchase the assets.

This was due to the regulator not getting the required information and documents relating to matters like assessment of the oil reserves’ volumes and an updated technical report that reflect the current oil price trend.

CLIQ blamed the independent expert’s reliance on the asset valuation report prepared by the asset valuation expert, claiming the independent expert did not take a view on the reasonableness of the report and its contents, in arriving at its fairness opinion.

“The technical reports prepared by the independent technical expert and the fairness opinion have not been updated to reflect the current oil prices trends. This is not in compliance with paragraph 3.34 of the SC’s Guidelines on Due Diligence Conduct for Corporate Proposals., it said.

However, CLIQ said while it tried to address all the required information and documents, it encountered external issues such as the substantial drop in oil prices since it signed the sale-purchase agreement in March last year, and the ringgit’s depreciation against the US dollar.

CLIQ’s deadline to complete the QA falls on April 9 followed by 75% shareholder acceptance, before it can proceed with the acquisition.

CLIQ shares fell half a sen to close at 69 sen apiece yesterday. Its market capitalisation stood at RM435.35 million.