By Jeannette Neumann And Patricia Kowsmann
MADRID--Spain's Caixabank SA on Thursday said it is dropping its
takeover bid for Portugal's Banco BPI SA after shareholders of the
Portuguese bank rejected the lender's proposal to lift a voting
rights cap.
Earlier Thursday, Portugal's market regulator had suspended BPI
shares from trading because of a pending announcement, without
providing details on the contents or timing of the
announcement.
The suspension came after BPI shareholders on Wednesday rejected
Caixabank's proposal to lift a 20% cap on the Spanish bank's voting
rights. Analysts and investors said they had expected shareholders
to vote against Caixabank's proposal to remove the voting cap after
major BPI shareholders had been vocal about their aversion to the
EUR1.09 billion ($1.23 billion) takeover bid, claiming the offer
price was too low.
Caixabank offered in February to buy the 55.9% of the Portuguese
lender that it doesn't already own for EUR1.329 a share in cash.
The removal of the 20% cap on voting rights was a condition of that
offer. Some investors and analysts said they anticipated that
Caixabank would withdraw its takeover bid after the voting rights
cap wasn't lifted.
Write to Jeannette Neumann at jeannette.neumann@wsj.com and
Patricia Kowsmann at patricia.kowsmann@wsj.com
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