British-Led Group Offers $1.3-Billion For Koppers
A group led by a British construction firm launched an unsolicited tender offer Thursday for Koppers Co. that values the construction and chemicals company at about $1.3 billion.
The Pittsburgh-based Koppers declined to comment on the offer, but traders on Wall Street speculated that the bidding might go higher by sending the price of Koppers’ stock well above the $45-a-share offer.
Koppers rose $6.625 a share to $51.75 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Robert O’Gara, a spokesman for Koppers, also declined comment on whether Koppers’ board planned to meet to discuss the offer.
The bid was made by a concern called BNS Inc., whose biggest shareholder is Beazer PLC, a London-based general construction company that owns 49%.
Strong Businesses
Other participants in BNS are subsidiaries of Shearson Lehman Hutton, a New York-based investment firm that reportedly owns about 46%, and NatWest Investment Bank Ltd., a British investment bank said to own the remainder.
Several securities analysts said Koppers, which recently completed a restructuring that shed several businesses over the past three years, was worth more than the offered price.
Robert Kanters, senior vice president for the stock brokerage Legg Mason Masten in Pittsburgh, said Koppers could attract a bid “in the $55- to $60-a-share range.”
“It is a good company with a commanding position in aggregates and the coal-based chemicals businesses,” he said.
Aggregates are the rock mixtures used in road and bridge construction.
Among its coal-based chemicals products are substances used to treat lumber.
Appeal of Quarries
Fred Siemer, who follows the chemicals business for the firm Chemical Research, said Koppers “is worth more than they are offering,” but declined to speculate on precisely what it is worth.
He said Beazer probably is attracted to Koppers’ quarries, which are essential for road building. He said Koppers was one of the biggest producers of stone last year. The company said it operates about 150 quarries in 20 states.
The bid is conditioned on, among other things, Koppers’ stockholders tendering a majority of the company’s common shares, approval by the non-management directors of Koppers, approval by Beazer’s shareholders and the bidding group’s satisfaction that certain elements of Delaware anti-takeover laws are invalid.
The offer expires at midnight March 30 unless extended.
Beazer said that it planned to operate Koppers as an independent, autonomous business and that there were no plans to move its headquarters from Pittsburgh.
