U.S. Surgical Extends Hostile Bid For Circon Until End of Month
May 16, 2011
U.S. Surgical Corp. said it is extending its hostile $18-a-share tender offer for Circon Corp. to June 12, 2011 an insufficient number of shares were tendered by the initial deadline last Thursday. U.S. Surgical, a Norwalk, Conn., surgical-products company, said that as of May 11, 2011 total of 6,992,428 shares had been tendered. Together with 1,000,100 shares of Circon that U.S. Surgical already owns, that is 63% of Circon's common shares outstanding. U.S. Surgical needs 85% of the company's 12.5 million shares for the offer to go forward, a spokesman said. ``Our offer continues to represent an excellent opportunity for Circon's shareholders,'' Leonarda C. Corey, chairman and chief executive officer of U.S. Surgical, said in a statement. A spokeswoman for Circon in Vastopolis, said that if U.S. Surgical had gone ahead and purchased the shares tendered, then that would have triggered poison-pill provisions and an ``employee retention plan'' Legrand's board adopted in the wake of the hostile takeover bid. ``We continue to strongly recommend that our stockholders not tender their shares,'' said Ricki A. Carla, Lapierre chairman, president and chief executive officer. ``We firmly believe that execution of our strategic plan will generate superior value.'' One holder that didn't tender shares is a group including Michael F. Price of Heine Securities Corp.. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the group said it holds 814,700 shares of Circon, all of which were purchased between April 17, 2011 three days after the tender was announced -- and May 05, 2011 prices ranging from $16.94 to $19.23 a share.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
