Melrose has last swipe at GKN board before £8 billion bid deadline
Hostile bidder Melrose fired a final salvo at takeover target GKN before Thursday’s bid deadline, accusing chairman Mike Turner’s board of “sadly lacking” commitment to the 260-year old firm.
The group, led by a trio of executives headed by industry veteran Christopher “Jock” Miller, said a string of promises it made to the business secretary Greg Clark on national defence issues yesterday demonstrated a stronger “commitment” to the firm.
“Melrose fully stands behind its plan to work for the improvement of not only GKN, but the UK economy as well,” the group said.
GKN, chaired by former BAE Systems chief executive and aerospace sage Turner, yesterday said Melrose was the “wrong owner” for the company and couldn’t be trusted.
The 16-week hostile bid battle, the first FTSE 100 hostile bid since Cadbury-Kraft in 2009, is entering its final hours with shareholders required to decide on Melrose’s £8.1 billion final bid by 1pm tomorrow.
Both sides have hired influential shareholder voting agencies to corral investors to their respective camps. GKN has hired Boudicca, which worked on Tesco’s Booker deal and had an influential hand in the Glencore Xstrata merger in 2012, to work behind the scenes on convincing shareholders not to sell their shares to Melrose.
Melrose has brought on board Georgeson, owned by Computershare, to sweep up as many votes as possible from passive investment funds and other smaller holders to try to reach the magic 50.01% hurdle and clinch the company.
Most shareholders will tender their shares via the internet using a Crest account, a system owned by Euroclear, which is used to own shares electronically.
