Weir abandons bid for Australian engineer

Engineering group Weir has walked away from a £217m takeover offer for Australian mining equipment maker Ludowici after being repeatedly outbid by a Danish rival in an acrimonious bidding process.

On February 23 the FTSE 100 maker of equipment for the minerals, oil, gas and power sectors submitted a binding offer to the board of Ludowici to acquire all of its shares at A$10 each via a scheme of arrangement. But FLSmidth, the Danish cement and minerals equipment specialist, was given the green light by the Australian Takeovers Panel on Friday to proceed with its A$11 a share offer made on February 24. This followed Weir complaining to the panel about FLSmidth’s failure to immediately correct statements in an article published by Reuters on January 23 that referred to the Danish firm’s ability to raise its initial takeover offer of A$7.20 a share.

After the panel decided not to “make orders holding FLS to these statements”, Weir said it had ended its interest in Ludowici and the binding offer had lapsed.

Weir chief executive Keith Cochrane said: “Whilst Ludowici represented an attractive opportunity to expand our market-leading Australian business, our focus in any acquisition is to create value for Weir shareholders. A materially higher offer would not have met the rigorous financial criteria which we apply to all acquisitions.”