Yahoo Finance Carlyle stays in race for Vectura
Carlyle has rejected pressure to abandon a deal with London-listed inhaler company Vectura, extending its offer ahead of a looming deadline for rival bidder Philip Morris.
The private equity firm said it has opted to waive deadlines linked to its £958m takeover offer for Vectura, meaning the bid will remain on the table past the September 3 deadline.
The decision comes as shareholders continue to debate whether to accept a £1.1bn bid from the maker of Malboro cigarettes. They have until September 15 to make a decision on Philip Morris's 165p a share bid.
Philip Morris changed its approach to be a takeover offer, rather than a scheme of arrangement, meaning it only requires 50pc of shareholders to accept.
In its last update on August 19, Philip Morris held just under 30pc of Vectura after making a series of purchases earlier this month.
City rules dictate that if a company holds a stake of more than 30pc it must make a cash offer at the highest price paid for the shares in the previous 12 months.
However, the purchases sparked concern about the implications should the Philip Morris bid prove unsuccessful and it decided to dump the shares.
The extension of the Carlyle offer is likely to reassure some shareholders that even if that were to be the case, a 155p a share offer remains on the table.
Shares in Vectura closed at 163.8p on Friday. They have risen about 28pc this year, driven higher by the takeover interest.
Questions over whether Philip Morris will convince more than half of shareholders to agree to the deal have emerged amid pressure from health charities over the deal.
Philip Morris is the world's largest listed tobacco company. Vectura, meanwhile, is behind the technology used in NHS inhalers and to treat smoking-related illnesses.
Charities including Asthma UK & the British Lung Foundation and the COPD Foundation have written to shareholders to warn that a takeover by Big Tobacco would “significantly hamper Vectura’s ability to continue operating as a viable, research-oriented business”.
Philip Morris has responded to critics by saying they are “not interested in progress” and are instead working to stop the company moving away from cigarette sales.
On Friday, it published a framework for how it would move towards more sustainable financing, including tying part of that financing to how well it was able to phase out generating revenue from cigarettes.
The chief financial officer of Philip Morris, Emmanuel Babeau, said the framework would "allow investors and lenders to engage with and support our industry-leading transformation as we work to accelerate the end of smoking and use our strong capabilities to develop products that go beyond nicotine and have a net positive impact on society".
