By Claire Reilly
Haier has passed the final regulatory approval barrier for the takeover of Fisher & Paykel, with the Chinese company today receiving approval from New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Office.
This follows approval from Chinese regulators who last week endorsed Haier’s bid to purchase all the shares in Fisher & Paykel Appliances (FPA). As a result, the company has formally announced that its share buyout offer is now unconditional.
Today’s news comes after the company raised its offer price for FPA from $1.20 per share to $.128 per share. This led FPA’s directors to support the offer and advise shareholders to accept the new buying price. Since doing so, Stuart Broadhurst (FPA’s CEO) and Gary Paykel (director and son of Fisher & Paykel’s co-founder Maurice Paykel) have offloaded their shareholdings in the company.
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Speaking about the share offer, the chairman of Haier New Zealand Investment Holding Company Ltd and president of Haier White Goods Group, Liang Haishan, advised shareholders to accept the new price.
“The support of the Fisher & Paykel Appliances independent directors for our revised offer price, acceptances by major shareholders, and the generally positive market reaction are clear indications of the very good value of our offer,” he said.
Haishan also said that Haier would not be increasing the offer price further.
Shareholders have until 5pm on 6 November 2012 to accept the offer (unless notified of an extension to the offer period), with full payments to be made by 13 November 2012.