Speedel board recommends acceptance of Novartis offer
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Speedel's board of directors has recommended that its shareholders accept the offer made by Novartisto acquire the company for CHF130 ($126) per share. Novartis bought 51.7% of the shares in Speedel in July, bringing the total amount of shares it owned to 61.4%, and subsequently began a mandatory tender offer to acquire the company. The offer, which was in the mid-third of analyst recommendations, is considerably higher than the average price of Speedel's shares for the 60 trading days before the announcement of the offer – CHF72.19 – and Novartis expects the full acquisition to cost CHF907 million (Scrip Online, July 10th, 2008).