Melrose secures almost all shares to secure German target
WARWICKSHIRE-based manufacturing turnaround specialist Melrose has completed its tender offer for the £1.5bn acquisition of German engineering group Elster.
Melrose subsidiary Mintford had bid for 100% of the outstanding ordinary shares and American Depositary Shares of Elster. The offer is based on a price of $82 per ordinary share and $20.50 per American Depositary Share.
As of yesterday’s deadline, Melrose said it had received assurances for 99.62% of the total shares. The assurances include 17,412,069 of Elster’s ordinary shares and 42,804,332 of the ADSs.
Melrose said it now expected Elster would be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange within the next few weeks.
“As previously announced by Melrose at the end of the initial offering period, having acquired over 95% of the total share capital of Elster in the initial tender offer, Melrose intends to implement a ‘squeeze-out’ of the remaining Elster shareholders.
“Such squeeze-out process will be subject to German law and is expected to take a number of months to complete once initiated,” said the company in a statement.
Elster is a world leading engineering company and one of the world’s largest providers of gas, electricity and water meters, gas utilisation products and related communications, networking and software solutions.
Melrose said the acquisition represented a significant opportunity for it to execute its strategy of buy, improve, and sell.
