Wilmington, DL, May 24—DuPont announced that DCI Acquisition Inc., a subsidiary of DuPont, has extended the expiration time for its April 17 offer to acquire all of the outstanding class A common shares, series 1 (the "Common Shares") of DuPont Canada Inc. The new deadline is 10:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on Monday, June 9. The initial expiration time for the offer was 11:59 p.m. (Toronto time) on May 23.
The offer has also been varied to reduce the minimum percentage of shares, which must be tendered under the offer from 90% to 50.1% of the outstanding shares not already held by DuPont and its affiliates. No other changes have been made to the offer.
A formal notice of extension and variation of the DuPont offer is expected to be mailed to DuPont Canada's shareholders on Tuesday, May 27.
DuPont indicated that 15,040,416 shares, or approximately 23% of the shares not already held by DuPont and its affiliates, had been tendered pursuant to the offer as of the initial expiration time.
"Our (Cdn)$21.00 offer to the minority shareholders represents full and fair value," said John P. Jessup, DuPont vice president and treasurer. "It received the unanimous support of the independent directors comprising the Special Committee of DuPont Canada's board, and was deemed fair from a financial point of view by the Special Committee's financial advisor."
As previously announced, DuPont plans to separate DuPont Textiles & Interiors (DTI) by the end of 2003, market conditions permitting. DuPont reaffirmed, as stated in the offering circular, that if this offer is unsuccessful, DuPont intends to transfer its current share ownership interest in DuPont Canada to DuPont Textiles & Interiors. This transfer is expected to occur prior to any separation of DTI, regardless of the form of separation.
"We believe that the best decision for all shareholders is to take advantage of this offer. However, whatever the outcome, we will proceed with our previously announced separation of DTI on the current timetable," said Jessup.
