DSV A/S agreed to acquire Swiss rival Panalpina Welttransport Holding AG in a deal worth US$4.6 billion that would create one of the world’s largest companies in logistics and freight-forwarding.
The board of directors of Panalpina recommended shareholders accept the mostly stock offer worth 196 Swiss francs a share, the companies said in a statement yesterday.
The price represents a 43 percent premium from Jan. 15, the day before DSV’s initial proposal, and has the backing of investors holding 69.9 percent of registered shares, including the Ernst Goehner Foundation, which owns 46 percent of Panalpina and had rebuffed a previous offer.
DSV has grown into the world’s fifth-largest freight-forwarder through a series of acquisitions over the past decades.
In combining with Panalpina, DSV would become the world’s third or fourth-largest freight-forwarder and the No. 2 in air freight, DSV chief executive officer Jens Bjorn Andersen said in a telephone interview yesterday.
The deal ends months of speculation about the future of Panalpina, which in the middle of February announced talks with Agility for a logistics tie-up in an effort to avoid being taken over by DSV.
Minority shareholders, including Cevian Capital AB and Artisan Partners, went public with comments in favor of a DSV takeover, adding pressure on Panalpina’s management and the foundation.
Both investors back the offer, the companies said.
“We welcome the agreement between Panalpina and DSV,” Cevian Capital managing partner Lars Forberg said in a separate statement. “We believe the combination has great industrial logic and will create one of the best companies in the logistics industry.”
Following completion of the transaction, DSV is to propose changing the name of the combined entity to DSV Panalpina A/S.
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