Canon squeezes out last Océ shareholders
Canon has finally concluded its buyout of Netherlands-based print machinery manufacturer, Océ, almost two years after it first made a takeover bid.
After being stymied from gaining complete control by an opportunistic stakeholding by hedge fund, Orbis Funds, the latest move will see the company’s remaining shareholders effectively squeezed out of their share ownership. Canon finally met the Orbis demands for a higher price in December last year, moving to a trigger threshold where it can ‘squeeze out’ other minor shareholders.
The Japanese tech giant announced on 25 January it had commenced formal statutory buyout proceedings under Dutch law to acquire the remaining shares in its subsidiary, Océ. The proceedings launched by Canon are commonly known as a part of a ‘squeeze out procedure,’ that will see any remaining shares snapped up by Canon.
The squeeze out procedure saw Canon offer the purchase price of €9.75 per ordinary share to remaining shareholders, which is equal to the purchase price the company paid for the share it acquired from Orbis Funds in late December last year. This is €1.15 more per share than the vast majority of shareholders received in 2010.
This move completes Canon’s buyout of Océ which began in early 2010, when it took a majority stake in the printer manufacturer following a €730 million (US$1 billion) buyout, netting the Japanese company 71 per cent of the shares.
This final move in its Océ acquisition has increased Canon’s ownership in the company to 98.83 per cent of the entire issued share capital. This new percentage of ownership of Océ allows the company to delist from NYSE Euronext Amsterdam, which it expects to occur on 14 February.
The squeeze out procedure by the formal service of the writ of summons was initiated because the Océ shares are traded in book-entry form, meaning the minority shareholders remain unknown to Canon. As a consequence the formal summons will also be announced in a local Dutch newspaper.
The buyout announcement comes amid some shaky times for Canon’s upper corporate echelons, with the announcement this week that the company’s president and CEO, Tsuneji Uchida, will resign from both posts by late March, following a forecast profit of less than one per cent for the second year in a row.
Industry observers are now speculating on the future of the Océ brand. Despite assurances that the organisation's manufacturing plants in Germany will continue to be autonomous, Canon is likely to move towards unified branding now that it has finally got control.