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news.Speedel Holding has announced that five major shareholders of Speedel, including Alice Huxley, CEO of Speedel, have entered into and closed a binding agreement with Novartis under which Novartis purchased all their registered shares for a total consideration of CHF525.4 million.
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This represents a purchase price of CHF130 per registered share. Following the closing of the agreement with Speedel’s major shareholders, Novartis, including the 9.7% stake in Speedel prior to this announcement, now holds 61.4% of Speedel.
Novartis also published a pre-announcement of a public tender offer to the shareholders for CHF130 per share. The offer price represents an 80% premium to the volume weighted average share price of the 60 trading days prior to the announcement. Pursuant to Novartis’ preannouncement, full details of the offer will be disclosed in the offer document, which is expected approximately in the week of August 11, 2008.
Speedel’s board of directors has taken notice of Novartis’ transaction with Speedel’s shareholders and the preannouncement of the public tender offer. The board of directors will evaluate the offer and decide on a recommendation for Speedel’s public shareholders within the next 10 days.
Ms Huxley has offered Speedel’s board of directors her resignation. She has informed the board that in her assessment and after careful consideration the decision to sell the shares to Novartis was in the company’s best interest.