Monday is seeing a variety of different M&A activity. For instance, Martin Marietta Materials Inc. (NYSE:MLM) said that they were going to appeal a court ruling that would is preventing them from a hostile takeover for rival Vulcan Materials Co. (NYSE:VMC). Next, we see Westlake Chemical Corp. (NYSE:WLK) announced that they were dropping their bid for rival Georgia Gulf Corp. (NYSE:GGC). Lastly, Unicom Systems has announced they will acquire GTSI Corp. (NYSE:GTSI).
Lets get a deeper look at the Martin Marietta Materials/Vulcan Materials takeover details. MLM was blocked by the court from going forward with its hostile takeover bid after the court ruled the proposed bid violated a confidentiality agreement. In December, MLM offered Vulcan $4.7 billion to be acquired but the firm rejected the offer as “inadequate”. The latest news is that Martin Marietta Materials has said they will fight the ruling so the takeover bid has a chance but it won’t be easy to get it passed.
Westlake Chemical recently released an announcement that they will no longer be seeking to purchase rival Georgia Gulf Corp. The company announced that they would be liquidating their holdings of Georgia Gulf Corp shares. GGC saw its shares fall 9% as the deal fell through on May 4th. Originally, Westlake was going to takeover GGC for $30 a share as announced on January 17th. However, Westlake increased the bid to $35 a share on February 1st, which put Georgia Gulf at a $1.2 billion valuation. Interestingly enough, Georgia Gulf rejected both offers from Westlake which ultimately made the firm look for other opportunities in the marketplace.
As mentioned earlier, Unicom Systems has placed a bid for GTSI Corp for $7.75 per share in cash. This gives GTSI a valuation of $76.67 million. The per share rate is 48% above the stock’s close on May 5th. Sterling Phillips, President and CEO of GTSI says the deal will bring shareholders great value and highlighted short and long term benefits for customers, employees and OEM partners. On the other side of the table, Corry Hong, founder and CEO of Unicom has said that the acquisition of GTSI “will help expand the current business’s ability to deliver IT products and services to enterprise customers”.
In investing, staying up to date on mergers and acquisitions is very important. If you fail to do so you could be missing out on great opportunities or avoiding a landslide.
