It looks like Cisco is trying to play hardball with the shareholders in its quest to acquire teleconferencing company Tandberg ASA. Cisco has offered to pay 17.2 billion-kroner ($3.04 billion US), but is now threatening to pull the offer off the table because some of the existing shareholders are not willing to settle for the price offered. There are 21 owners that won’t sell their shares at the offered rate (153.5 kroner/share), instead, they feel that the can hold out and cause the offer to go even higher.
According to a Cisco representative, “We are currently in the middle of a tender-offer process, we are not able to comment… We have stated previously that we believe we are paying a fair price for a quality asset.” The rumor is that Cisco is very interested in acquiring Tandberg in order to expand Cisco’s videoconferencing division, which suggests that there might be some flexibility still within the offer. It will be interesting to see what happens to the existing Tandberg relationship with Microsoft and Avaya – two major competitors for Cisco.
Perhaps the 21 hold-out owners saw the ubiquitous Cisco product placement in the summer blockbusters GI Joe, and Transformers 2, so they feel that there might be a little left in Cisco’s wallet.
Good luck to them!
Written by: Jason Finnerty. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Identi.ca, or Friendfeed
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