Axis Shield PLC Rejects Alere Inc.'s $374 Million Hostile Takeover Bid
Alere Inc. (ALR), a U.S. maker of medical diagnostic tests, will press ahead with a 230 million-pound ($374 million) hostile takeover bid for Axis-Shield Plc (ASD) after the Scottish company spurned the offer. The 460-pence-a-share cash offer is 37 percent higher than Axis-Shield’s closing price of 335 pence on July 5, the day before Alere announced that it had proposed a takeover, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company said in a statement today. Axis-Shield, based in Dundee, Scotland, repeated today that the offer is too low. The bid may prompt other prospective bidders to emerge, said Sebastien Jantet, an analyst with Investec Securities. A price of 530 pence a share would be fair, while 550 pence would be a “knockout price,” he wrote in a report to clients today.