1st Jun 2016 06:52
LONDON (Alliance News) - South African furniture and household goods retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NV on Wednesday confirmed that its takeover offer for electrical goods retailer Darty PLC has lapsed after Darty recommended a rival offer by Groupe Fnac SA.
Steinhoff, which made its offer through its retail chain Conforama, had been engaged in a bidding war for Darty with Fnac, which like Darty also sells electrical products in Europe.
After a series of rival bids, Steinhoff left its final offer at 160 pence share, lower than Fnac's final offer of 170p per share.
Fnac's final offer includes a partial share alternative, under which shareholders are entitled to elect to receive one new Fnac share per every 25 Darty shares instead of all or part of the cash they would otherwise receive.
Darty had initially recommended one of Steinhoff's earlier bids of 125p per share in March, but then as the bidding war escalated Darty said it would consider offers from both parties.
On Tuesday, Darty said it is recommending Fnac's final offer over Steinhoff's, with the former valuing Darty at a premium of 6.3% to the final offer made by Steinhoff.
The co-operation agreement entered into between Conforama and Darty in March required Steinhoff to keep its final offer open until June 10 provided that the board of Darty had not withdrawn its recommendation.
However, now that Darty has withdrawn its recommendation, Steinhoff's offer has now lapsed.
"Accordingly, Conforama confirms that it will not extend the final offer and announces today that the final offer has lapsed and is no longer capable of acceptance," Steinhoff said in a statement on Wednesday.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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