Melrose puts the squeeze on

Engineering buy-out firm Melrose said it had failed to persuade all the shareholders in German takeover target Elster Group to hand over their stock and would now force them to sell.

However, it said the "squeeze-out" process would delay the takeover by a number of months due to regulatory issues in Germany.

Melrose said it had secured 99.62% of the total share capital of Elster, which included 17.4m ordinary shares and 42.8m American depository shares (ADS) of the firm.

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Under the previously announced agreed offer, Elster shareholders will receive $82 per ordinary share and ADS holders will receive $20.50 for every ADS.

This was a premium of 48.6% to the price of an Elster ADS on June 11th, the last business day prior to press speculation that Rembrandt Holdings, Elster's majority shareholder, was considering a sale of its Elster holding.

"As previously announced by Melrose at the end of the initial offering period, having acquired over 95% of the total share capital of Elster in the initial tender offer, Melrose intends to implement a 'squeeze-out' of the remaining Elster shareholders," the company said.

"Such squeeze-out process will be subject to German law and is expected to take a number of months to complete once initiated," it added.