KUALA LUMPUR (April 26): Sona Petroleum Bhd shareholders rejected the company' proposed acquisition of Australia's Stag Oilfield for US$25 million (about RM99 million) at the company's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here.
 
In a statement to Bursa Malaysia today, Sona said 77.39% of the votes cast at Sona's EGM were against the deal, while 22.61% voted for the transaction.

"The board of directors of Sona Petroleum Bhd wishes to announce that at the adjourned EGM held today, the special resolution in relation to the proposed acquisition was not passed by the shareholders of Sona Petroleum," Sona said.

Today's setback is deemed temporary since as special purpose acquisition company, Sona is still exploring its options for its qualifying acquisition (QA).

Speaking after the EGM, the meeting's chairman Datuk Mohamed Khadar Merican said Sona still had about three months to pursue its QA.

"We still have three months time, before our QA deadline on July 29. We will discuss with our lawyer and explore what are the options we have," he said.

He did not elaborate, but only indicated that the QA was a complicated issue amid a lack of support from shareholders.

As such, Mohamed Khadar said Sona might opt not to seek shareholders' consent on other potential asset buys should the shareholdings remain unchanged.

He claimed that a "few big shareholders are not keen on oil assets", although the assets were good.

Today's EGM followed an earlier one, which was adjourned last month.

On March 30 this year, Sona adjourned its EGM, after shareholders said they were unclear about the company's proposed RM80 million capital repayment.

The capital repayment hinge on the success of Sona's acquistion of the Stag Oilfield in Australia.

Today, Sona shares rose one sen or 2.3% to 44 sen at 12:30pm, for market capitalisation of RM620.71 million. The stock saw some two million shares done.

Sona's share trade has been suspended between 2:30pm and 3:30pm.