* MOL's bid draws only 0.1 percent of shares
* MOL says remains committed to INA in a long term
ZAGREB, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Hungary's MOL failed in its bid to become the majority owner of Croatia's oil and gas group INA , the Croatian financial watchdog HANFA said on Wednesday.
MOL is INA's biggest shareholder with a 47.15 percent stake. The Croatian government owns 44.84 percent.
In its one-month offer to small shareholders, which expired on Jan. 14, MOL gathered only 10,082 shares, or 0.1 percent of the overall stock.
MOL offered 2,800 kuna ($510.2) per share, but after its bid was announced the price surged to a life-high of 3,550 kuna per share.
Prior to the bid INA's shares were valued at around 1,700 kuna.
During the bid, which started in mid-December, MOL slammed the sudden price jump as unfair and complained to the local market watchdog, but the complaint was rejected. After the bid was announced, the government said it wanted to protect its position in INA and supported local investors willing to acquire INA shares. Local pension funds said they were engaged in acquiring INA shares on the local bourse in recent weeks, believing in their future value.
The local pension funds now own close to four percent of INA.
Local market participants said there was also one foreign-based buyer engaged in trading with INA shares in recent weeks which may have acquired around 1.5 percent of INA.
MOL did not comment on the outcome of the bid but said its offer was the fulfillment of a promise to small shareholders from two years ago when it became the biggest INA shareholder.
"As we said at the beginning of the offer, nothing would change in respect of managing the company or in our partnership with the Croatian state. We are fully committed to INA and Croatia in a long term," MOL's spokesman Domokos Szollar said.
INA is one of the biggest Croatian companies with upstream and downstream segments. It is active in gas and oil exploration in Croatia, Africa and the Middle East, notably Syria.
At the moment it remains unclear whether MOL will make another bid to become the majority owner later on.
(Reporting by Igor Ilic, edited by Elaine Hardcastle)