Grand Met Extends Offer for Pillsbury a Third Time

Grand Metropolitan PLC on Tuesday extended its hostile $5.23-billion tender offer for Pillsbury Co. for the third time, and said Pillsbury shareholders had tendered 79.1% of the company’s outstanding shares.

The $60-a-share offer, which was to expire Monday night, was extended to Nov. 18.

The bid, launched Oct. 4, is conditioned on the removal of Pillsbury’s “poison pill” defense. Judges in two states have left the pill intact despite lawsuits from Grand Met and dissident shareholders. The pill would make a takeover prohibitively expensive. Further court action is pending.

Grand Met said 67,595,940 shares of Pillsbury common stock had been tendered and not withdrawn by the Monday night deadline.

Franchisees Meeting

Chairman Philip Smith has told Pillsbury shareholders that they would be better off keeping their stock in light of the food and restaurant company’s proposed spinoff of its Burger King business into a separate public company.

Separately, Burger King Chairman Jerry Levin met Tuesday in Miami with 15 franchisees who had met Monday with Ian Martin, chief of Grand Met’s U.S. operations.

A number of franchisees are upset over Pillsbury’s plan to spin off Burger King on the grounds that corporate support for their businesses would decline from the surviving, debt-burdened firm.

Martin told franchisees that Grand Met would spend a significant amount of money to renovate existing Burger King restaurants, build more and improve the company’s marketing. The strategy could lead to streamlining and management changes at Burger King headquarters in Miami, Martin said.