DuPont: AIC Ltd. Tenders 10.7 Million DuPont Cda S
Wilmington, DL, June 12--Chemical maker DuPont Co. on Wednesday said one of the larger minority holders of its DuPont Canada unit sold back about 16 percent of the shares DuPont does not already own, bringing DuPont closer to buying the unit.
The institutional shareholder AIC Limited has tendered about 10.69 million shares, for the raised price of C$21.75 a share, DuPont said. Half of the earnings of DuPont Canada come from textile operations, which DuPont wants to consolidate into its U.S. Textiles and Interiors (DTI) business before selling or spinning it off by year end.
DuPont earlier this month sweetened its offer to C$21.75 per DuPont Canada share, up from its original bid in March of C$21 a share, for the 67 million, or 24 percent of shares, it does not own.
The move followed the Wilmington, Delaware-based company's failure to get the 90 percent of minority shares it hoped to buy back when it first announced the offer in March. It only got 23 percent by May and lowered the minimum number of shares tendered to 50.1 percent.
DuPont faced a shareholder lawsuit and discontent over its tender offer price.
If the 50.1 percent threshold is reached, DuPont can call a meeting of DuPont Canada stakeholders to vote on whether to sell the unit to DuPont Co. DuPont wants to complete the acquisition before the end of July.
AIC had not tendered to the initial C$21 offer.
"We view this as a meaningful step in achieving the minimum threshold of 50.1 percent," said DuPont spokesman Irvin Lipp.
Shares of DuPont closed up 36 cents at $43.79 in Wednesday trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
