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BlueScope dismisses Stokes’ $13.2bn offer as ‘drastically undervalued’
Kerry Stokes and his US partners will have to come up with more cash after BlueScope Steel rejected his $13.2bn takeover bid as too low and an attempt to buy the company “on the cheap”, Australian Associated Press reports.
US-based industrial metals group Steel Dynamics had teamed with the Stokes-controlled SGH Limited in a bid to acquire the company’s North American operations.
They had offered $30 a share – a 27% premium to the trading price of BlueScope shares when the offer was made on 12 December. Steel Dynamics had made three unsuccessful previous approaches to take control of BlueScope.
Shares in the Port Kembla Steelworks operator soared yesterday by 20.6% to a 17-year high of $29.48 after the takeover offer was first made public on Monday night.
BlueScope’s chair, Jane McAloon, said in a statement to the ASX late yesterday that the board had unanimously rejected the offer.
Let me be clear – this proposal was an attempt to take BlueScope from its shareholders on the cheap. It drastically undervalued our world-class assets, our growth momentum, and our future – and the board will not let that happen.
This is the fourth time we’ve said no, and the answer remained the same – BlueScope is worth considerably more than what was on the table.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Nick Visser is due to bring you the main action.
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Kerry Stokes and his US partners will have to come up with more cash after BlueScope Steel rejected his $13.2bn takeover bid as too low and an attempt to buy the company “on the cheap”. More details coming up.
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