UK aerospace giant Rolls-Royce and partner Daimler look to have sealed a 3.4bn euro (£3bn) takeover of German engine-maker Tognum AG, the world’s second-biggest manufacturer of high-speed diesel engines for the marine, energy and defence industries.
Members of the Tognum board agreed to back the bid with their combined 5% stake after Daimler and Rolls-Royce raised their offer by 8.3% to 26 euros a share. It means that, together with Daimler’s 28.4% stake, Rolls-Royce and Daimler can complete the deal at the reduced acceptance threshold of 30% without the backing of other Tognum shareholders.
Daimler, the world’s third-biggest maker of luxury cars and owner of Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks, sold Tognum, then called MTU Friedrichshafen, for 1.6bn euros to Swedish finance group EQT Partners in March 2006 to help pay for reorganising US carmaker Chrysler, which it then owned. However, it retained a big enough stake in Tognum to allow it to block efforts by other potential suitors because shareholders with more than 25% of any German company can veto bids.
Rolls-Royce’s giant Patchway plant in Bristol, which houses its military aerospace engine headquarters, is increasingly designing and producing marine engines. Rolls-Royce, the world’s second biggest manufacturer of aircraft engines, plans to integrate Tognum into its German Bergen business which makes engines for ships and power generators.
