Belgium's Aliaxis withdraws offer for Finland's Uponor

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Belgian water management group Aliaxis has withdrawn its public tender offer for Finland's Uponor, the bidder said in a statement on Wednesday.

Swiss industrial group Georg Fischer on Monday made a rival offer of 28.85 euros per share, valuing Uponor at 2.1 billion euros, a 12% premium to the Belgian company's bid.

"Taking into account the announcement of Georg Fischer's competing public tender offer on June 12 2023, and after thorough review, the offeror has today decided to withdraw its tender offer," Aliaxis said.

Aliaxis in late May made an all-cash offer for Uponor worth 1.87 billion euros ($2.06 billion), a 3% increase over the Belgian group's initial bid in April.

Uponor had rejected the Aliaxis offers, arguing they were insufficient even as the Belgian group had bought a 20% stake in the company.

(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje Solsvik)