Petroperu Seeks Advisor For Mid Year Share Offering

Peru’s oil company Petroperu is about to launch a formal search for an advisory firm that can structure the sale of a 20% stake in the state-owned company. If all goes as planned, Petroperu should sell shares to the public sometime in June or July of 2012, Edilfredo More, Petroperu’s CFO tells LatinFinance. “We want an advisor to value the company, structure the deal and tell us if the company is ready to go to market of if we need to restructure and strengthen different areas of the business first,” says More. So far Petroperu has no estimated value of the company. More hopes an advisor will also tell the company it can sell the 20% at once or start with a smaller fraction. “We seek to relaunch Petroperu,” says More. Petroperu has already registered with the Lima Stock Exchange, but it remains to be seen if the share sale will give priority to Peruvian investors. The company now controls Peru’s main refining plants and a crude oil pipeline, but it is now seeking to move into the upstream side of the business. The equity offering is expected to help fund the overhaul of Petroperu.