The former Danish company Danisco´s shareholders must decide soon whether to accept a $5.9 billion buyout offer from DuPont , its chief executive told them on Thursday, implying that she would walk away if they do not.
“We’ve made our position clear: our offer is full, fair and firm,” the chemical company’s CEO Ellen Kullman said on a conference call with investors. “Danisco shareholders have a choice to make between the certainty of our offer or the risks of the deal going away.”
The tender offer for the Danish company expires at the end of the month, and DuPont has yet to get more than a small fraction of Danisco shareholders to agree to the deal.
DuPont’s offer represents a 25 percent premium to Danisco’s stock price just before it was announced in January.
China, where Danisco has several assets, approved the deal earlier this month. This was the last regulatory approval needed.
DuPont finance chief Nick Fanandakis told Reuters last week that he was confident that the deal would be approved before the end of April.
Kullman’s comments came the same day DuPont posted better-than-expected earnings and raised its full-year earnings forecast.
