Via The Wall Street Journal, a report that Libya’s state-run energy fund plans to acquire a minority stake in Italian oil and gas company Eni SpA and might push for representation on Eni’s board.  According to the article:

“…In a phone interview on Sunday from Tripoli, Shokri Ghanem, head of Libya’s National Oil Co., said the state-run Libyan Energy Fund was set to buy Eni shares on the open market with the aim of building a stake of as much as 10% in the company.

“It could be a 2% stake, 10%, it depends on market conditions, but it will be only a minority stake” in Eni, Mr. Ghanem said without providing a timeline as to when the fund would begin buying.

Libyan officials are likely to push for a seat on Eni’s board if market conditions allow the fund to buy a “significant” stake in Eni, said Hafed Gaddur, Libya’s ambassador to Italy, in a phone interview. Board representation, however, is a “secondary interest” to finding the right price for the stake, Mr. Gaddur said, declining to say how much Libya aimed to spend on the Eni investment.

The Libyan pursuit of an Eni stake shows how the former Italian colony is taking advantage of the financial crisis to gain a foothold in Italy’s top companies. Libya is flush with cash and taking aim at companies once considered off-limits to foreign sovereign funds.

In October Libyan state-owned institutions took a 4.9% stake in UniCredit SpA, after a sharp drop in the shares of Italy’s second-biggest bank. Later that month Mr. Ghanem attended a conference in Rome with the chief executive of Eni and other Italian companies, describing Libya as a “bargain-hunter” in Italy. Shares in Eni, the biggest foreign investor in Libya’s oil industry, are down 39% over the past six months.

Libya informed Italy of its plans to invest in Eni with “the declared absence of any intention to interfere in the management of the company,” the Italian government said in a statement Saturday. Eni is controlled by the Italian government, which holds a 30.2% stake.

Mr. Ghanem said a partnership with Eni would enable the two companies to more easily pursue joint energy projects in third countries. “We would pursue projects together using our joint capital, their technology,” he said.

Mr. Ghanem said Libya is interested in buying shares in other publicly traded oil companies, but declined to say which firms Libya was eyeing. “They will remain nameless for now,” he said.

Eni will keep the financial market informed of any relevant changes in its share structure in line with stock market rules, a company spokeswoman said. According to Italian securities rules, an equity holding of 2% or more has to be declared.

Italy agreed to invest $5 billion in Libya for infrastructure projects over the next 25 years following an accord signed in August between the two countries that ended all disputes referring to Italy’s colonial past in Libya.”