Daimler Offered Anchor Investments from Middle East, Asia
October 06, 2008
Daimler has been approached by large groups from the Middle East and Asia that would like to act as anchor investors to fend off hostile takeovers or corporate raiders, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told the Financial Times in an interview.
Rumors have been flying for some time that Daimler is a takeover target because it has no anchor investor. Daimler's only large shareholder is the Kuwait Investment Authority, with a stake of 7.6 percent as of the end of April. The rest of its stock is free float, split between institutional and private investors.
"We have parties addressing us asking if we were interested," Zetsche told the Financial Times. "But in some cases we find out that they think we would give them special conditions - which is not the case."
Zetsche told the paper he feels no pressure to search for an anchor investor and was not doing so. "To call it an active search is a wrong definition. There are uncounted numbers of desperate people looking for equity and shareholders in the market right now and we are by no means part of this crowd."
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:32 AM under Business , Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
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