Datum Rejects Frequency’s Offer

Datum Inc., an Irvine telecommunications-equipment maker, said Friday it rejected an unsolicited offer from rival Frequency Electronics Inc. to buy the company for about $58 million in cash or stock.

Frequency Chairman Joseph Franklin said his company still wants to buy Datum but wouldn’t say if the offer price will be increased.

“When you look at the whole picture, it makes such sense,” Franklin said. “We’ll continue to pursue it.”

Both companies make timing and frequency-control products used in satellites, wireless telephones and computer networks. New York-based Frequency said Tuesday it offered to pay $10 a share in cash, or 1.06 of its shares for each Datum share, or a combination of cash and stock.

“We are convinced that our prospects as an independent company are significantly greater than would be the prospects of the merged company,” Datum’s president and chief executive, Erik van der Kaay, wrote to Martin Bloch, Frequency’s president and chief executive.

Combining the companies would save in development costs and help the companies compete in international markets, Franklin said.

Datum shares rose 94 cents, to $9.56, on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Frequency’s shares fell 13 cents, to $9, on the American Stock Exchange.