AlliedSignal in $10 billion hostile bid for AMP
The board of directors of AMP, Inc., Harrisburg, Pa., has rejected a hostile-takeover bid of $44.50 per share in cash, or a total of roughly $10 billion, from AlliedSignal, Inc. AMP's board appointed a new chief executive for the company and filed suit to block AlliedSignal from forcing its officers onto the AMP board.
AlliedSignal, Morris Township, N.J., said it will continue to pursue the merger. AlliedSignal commenced a tender offer and filed a consent solicitation with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking to more than double the size of the AMP board of directors by adding 17 AlliedSignal nominees--all directors or employees of AlliedSignal--to the 11-member AMP board to facilitate acceptance of AlliedSignal's offer.
AMP, a maker of electrical and electronic connectors with 1997 sales of $5.6 billion and more than 45,000 employees, has been struggling to reorganize and cut costs lately in the face of increasing global competition. The company has closed plants, reconfigured pricing strategies and furloughed employees in an attempt to reverse its fortunes, according to some analysts.
AlliedSignal, with $14.5 billion in 1997 sales, manufactures and markets aerospace and automotive products, chemicals, fibers, plastics and advanced materials. The acquisition of AMP would bring "a significant new business that will better position us to achieve our objective of consistent earnings growth," said AlliedSignal Chairman and CEO Larry Bossidy in a statement when the company initiated the offer.
About the Author
Doug Chandler
Senior Staff Writer
Doug has been reporting and writing on the electrical industry for Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing since 1992 and still finds the industry’s evolution and the characters who inhabit its companies endlessly fascinating. That was true even before e-commerce, LED lighting and distributed generation began to disrupt so many of the electrical industry’s traditional practices.
Doug earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Kansas after spending a few years in KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism, then deciding he absolutely did not want to be a journalist. In the company of his wife, two kids, two dogs and two cats, he spends a lot of time in the garden and the kitchen – growing food, cooking, brewing beer – and helping to run the family coffee shop.