Consultant Nippon Koei says 拢296m price for Hyder is too high, ending its bidding war with Arcadis for the UK engineer
Japanese consultant Nippon Koei has thrown in the towel in its bidding war with Arcadis over UK engineer Hyder.
The firm had been locked in a bidding war for the UK engineer since early August when it bid 拢268m, trumping Arcadis鈥� earlier bid of 拢256m.
But Arcadis in turn trumped Nippon Koei鈥檚 bid with a subsequent offer of 拢288m.
Then, last week, Arcadis secured enough Hyder shares, or agreements to sell shares, to block any rival bids and upped its offer further to 拢296m.
In response, Nippon Koei said it would 鈥渃onsider its position鈥� but this morning it announced it had withdrawn its offer and would 鈥渘o longer proceed with its potential acquisition of Hyder鈥�.
Noriaki Hirose, president of Nippon Koei, said that although Hyder was 鈥渁n excellent company鈥� an 鈥渁cquisition at the current valuation level would present challenges to value enhancement for us鈥�.
He added that enhancing the value would have proved especially difficult because Nippon had envisaged Hyder operating as a 鈥渟tandalone division鈥�, which would minimise the opportunities for synergy savings.
He added: 鈥淲e understand and regret the impact of a process such as this on the employees and customers of Hyder in particular, and wished to make it clear that we will not proceed with the acquisition now in order to minimise the ongoing uncertainty. We wish the management and employees of Hyder all the best in the future.
鈥淣ippon Koei retains its strategic vision to become a top tier global engineering consultancy and we will continue to investigate potential merger partners to assist us in achieving that aim.鈥�
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