Private equity firm Nordic Capital has extended the offer period for its EUR15 per share bid for IT services firm TietoEnator after the European Commission (EC) gave the deal the greenlight.
TietoEnator originally rejected the unsolicited EUR1.1 billion takeover bid from Nordic Capital's bid vehicle Cidron Services in March. Matti Lehti, chairman of the board, TietoEnator, said at the time the offer "does not reflect the true value of TietoEnator shares".
Nordic Capital later extended the offer period for the bid from 28 April to 9 May. The private equity firm has now moved to extend the offer period again to 16 May.
In a short statement, TietoEnator repeats its earlier claims that the price offered by Cidron Services "does not reflect the true value of the company" and recommends shareholders and holders of stock options "not to accept the offer".
However the EC has cleared the proposed takeover and says any deal "would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it".
The Commission says that although Nordic Capital owns Swedish IT company Aditro, the "horizontal overlaps" between the services offered by the two vendors are limited. In addition, the combined group would still face considerable competition in the field from major outfits like IBM, CapGemini, Accenture and Hewlett-Packard.
If the bid is successful Cidron Services will de-list TietoEnator and install Harri Koponen as executive chairman of the company.