Hitachi : Italy court rejects Hitachi and Leonardo appeals over Ansaldo STS bid price
January 28, 2019 at 07:46 pm IST
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ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court rejected appeals filed by Leonardo and Hitachi against a decision by market regulator Consob to force the Japanese conglomerate to raise its offer for Ansaldo STS, two separate rulings said on Monday.
In 2016, Consob said Hitachi had to raise its offer to 9.899 euros (8.58 pounds) per share from 9.5 euros when it launched a mandatory public offer to buy out Ansaldo STS minority shareholders. Hitachi had to launch the offer after first buying a 40 percent stake in the rail signalling company from state-controlled defence group Finmeccanica, now Leonardo.
The watchdog had said back in 2016 that Hitachi and the former Finmeccanica had colluded to keep the price of the offer artificially low by over-valuing another unlisted asset involved in the deal.
Consob's decision showed that both companies "were aware and wanted" to implement the deal in a way that was not in line with the "equal-treatment principle" that should be guaranteed to all shareholders, the ruling of the administrative court for the Lazio region showed.
Leonardo and Hitachi could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Alberto Sisto, writing by Giulio Piovaccari; editing by Agnieszka Flak)
Hitachi specializes in manufacturing and marketing of electronic and industrial equipments. Net sales (including intragroup) break down by family of products and services as follows:
- social infrastructure and industrial systems (24.7%): elevators, escalators, industrial facilities, railway systems, power generation units, etc. The group also provides engineering and construction of nuclear, hydroelectric, and thermal power plants services;
- information and telecommunications products and services (20.1%): systems integration, cloud computing, software, servers, hard disks, PCs, ATMs, data communication base stations, payment terminals, etc.;
- materials and components (16.6%): semi-conductor materials, printed circuit cards, cables, copper and forged steel products, magnetic materials, organic and inorganic chemical products, etc.;
- construction equipment (10%) : hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, mining equipment, etc.;
- automotive systems (9.4%): powertrain systems, control systems, etc.;
- electronic products (9.2%): fiber-optic components, screen tubes, testing and measurement equipment, medical equipment, equipment for manufacturing semiconductors, etc.;
- household appliances (4.7%): heating and air conditioning equipments, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.;
- other (5.3%): mainly transport, financial and logistical services.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Japan (49.2%), Asia (21.3%), North America (12.7%), Europe (10.8%) and other (6%).