Fletcher Building has waived its 90% minimum requirement of shareholder acceptances in its hostile, more than $1 billion bid, for Australian rival Crane Group when announcing it has built its stake to 57% yesterday.
Fletcher opened its takeover bid in mid-December and snared a majority 51.9% stake in plumbing supplies and plastic pipelinemaker Crane a week ago.
Fletcher chief executive Jonathan Ling said the offer went unconditional because Fletcher had gained a majority stake, saying there was "strong support" from both institutional and small retail investors.
Fletcher intends to immediately appoint two Fletcher divisional chief executives to Crane's board, then a third director later in March - who will displace three existing Crane directors.
Mr Ling said Fletcher intended to extend the offer period by six days to March 31, to allow acceptance by 7.7% shareholder Tyndall Investments; Tyndall being the largest institutional shareholder which has said it will accept the offer.
Crane's directors had accepted a revised, second offer, and subsequently agreed to sell their own shares.
Fletcher's revised offer of $A10.07 per Crane share is made up of Fletcher script and cash, valued in total at about $A800 million ($NZ1.085 billion).
