China's Midea Group Announces Bid for Germany's Kuka

HONG KONG—China's home-appliance maker Midea Group announced Wednesday it plans to launch a takeover of Germany's Kuka AG, in a deal that values the industrial robot maker at more than $5 billion, making it one of the largest unsolicited approaches of a foreign company by a Chinese buyer.

Midea Group is offering to pay 115 euros a share, a 59.6% premium over Kuka's unaffected closing price on Feb. 3, 2016, a day before Midea announced an increase in its stake in Kuka to 10.2%. Kuka's stock price closed at €72.05 per share on that day.

Midea Group, which owns shares in Kuka via its offshore affiliate MECCA International (BVI) Ltd., has since further increased it stake to 13.5%.

Midea Group said it intends to increase the shares it owns in Kuka to more than 30%, which requires an offer for all issued shares in the Ausburg, Germany-based company. In Frankfurt's premarket trading, Kuka's shares are up nearly 30% at €114 on Midea's statement, which confirmed The Wall Street Journal's report on Tuesday about the bid.

In a regulatory market disclosure notice in Germany, where Kuka is listed, Midea said the offer is subject to a minimum acceptance rate of 30% of issued shares of Kuka. This threshold include the stake the Chinese firm already owns.

The offer also requires approvals from regulatory and antitrust authorities in Germany, and of Midea shareholders, it said. State-owned China Securities Finance Corp Ltd and private equity firm CDH Investments are among Midea's minority shareholders.

The detailed public takeover offer awaits approval of BaFin, Germany's financial services regulator, and will be made public once that is received, Midea added.

In the event the takeover is successful, Kuka will remain independent and listed in Germany, Midea said.

Founded in 1968, in China's southern Guangdong province, Midea Group owns some of China's top air-conditioner, refrigerator and washing machine brands. The company reported a net profit of 3.9 billion yuan ($598 million) in the first quarter of this year.

The Shenzhen-listed company has increased its overseas activity in the past year. It announced a deal in March to acquire a controlling stake in Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Group's consumer-electronics arm for about $473 million, after losing out in the bidding race for General Electric Co.'s appliances unit earlier this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

GE sold the business to another Chinese company, Haier Group for $5.4 billion.

Midea's offer for Kuka also adds to the accelerating shopping spree of Chinese companies abroad. As of May 10, the country's firms this year acquired foreign companies worth $110.8 billion, according to Dealogic. That is already above the level of the entire last year, when the volume reached a record level of $106.8 billion.

Kuka, founded in 1898, is one of Germany's leading companies focused on the digitization of industrial manufacturing processes. Midea first bought a 5.4% stake in Kuka in August 2015.

A buyout of Kuka, should Midea opt to do so at a later point, could be complicated given the German company's shareholder structure.

German privately-held engineering company Voith Group holds 25% in Kuka, with another 10% being held by German billionaire Friedhelm Loh via his holding company.

On the bright side for Voith Group and Mr. Loh, stronger ties with Midea could help Kuka spur sales in China, which is the world's fastest-growing robotics market with an expected annual growth of 14% for the next few years, according to the Chinese company.

Trading of Midea Group's shares is currently suspended.

Ulrike Dauer and Eyk Henning in Frankfurt contributed to this article.

Write to Kane Wu at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2016 03:45 ET (07:45 GMT)

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