BackCorus shareholders seal Tata Steel offer
Corus shareholders seal Tata Steel offer
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London: Shareholders of Corus Group Plc. agreed to Tata Steel Limited’s 6.2 billion pound (Rs53,200 crore) takeover of the UK steelmaker, sealing the largest foreign acquisition by an Indian company.
Investors representing 97% of the shares backed the purchase following an extraordinary general meeting on 7th March 2007, the company said today.
The acquisition is scheduled to take effect on April 2 and Corus shares will stop trading on stock exchanges on March 29.
“The intention of this acquisition is about growth, not about job losses," Corus Chief Executive Officer Philippe Varin said in an interview.
Tata Steel offered 608 pence a share in January for Corus, beating a competing proposal from Brazil’s CSN following a bidding contest that lasted three months. The purchase is the second biggest in the industry, behind Mittal Steel’s $38.3 billion takeover of Arcelor SA last year.
Shares of Corus were trading 605 pence at 12:17pm in London on 7 March, valuing the steelmaker at about $11 billion. The stock was at 407.5 pence on October 5, the day Tata Steel said it was considering an alliance.
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