Tribune staff report | CF Industries Holdings Inc. said it has
successfully completed its initial exchange offer for all of the
outstanding shares of Terra Industries Inc. common stock.
As
of midnight, the expiration time, 85,757,343 shares of Terra common
stock were validly tendered and not withdrawn, representing
approximately 85.6 percent, of the outstanding shares of Terra common
stock. With CF Industries’ 85.6 percent ownership of Terra, today
effectively marks
the first day that CF Industries and Terra are a combined company, CF
Industries said.
Associated Press | Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services removed R.R. Donnelley & Sons
Co. from its CreditWatch list on Thursday after finishing a review of the
printing services company’s acquisition of Bowne & Co.
Standard & Poor’s backed its ratings on the Chicago company and
removed it from CreditWatch with negative implications.
By Bruce Japsen | Horizon Therapeutics Inc. said it will acquire Switzerland-based Nitec Pharma AG in a merger of two privately held pharmaceutical companies just beginning to sell pain management and arthritis treatments around the world.
Financial terms of the deal, finalized today, were not disclosed by the companies. The combined company, which will be named Horizon Pharma, Inc., will be led by Horizon chief executive Timothy Walbert and have its headquarters in the northwest Chicago suburb of Northbrook.
Dow Jones Newswires | Kraft Foods said Cadbury shareholders who have not yet accepted its final offer will have until April 16 to do so. The announcement is mainly a formality. At this point Kraft and Cadbury have already been working as a combined company since Feb. 2 and Cadbury shares have already been delisted from the exchanges.
Kraft announced in early February that it was able to go ahead with the acquisition after securing acceptances from shareholders representing more than 71.73 percent of Cadbury’s shares.
Dow Jones Newswires | Debt-laden drug maker Wockhardt Ltd. has
been forced to abandon the sale of its nutrition business to Abbott
Laboratories because of a dispute with some of its overseas lenders.
But the news was greeted positively by investors Thursday, as fears the
company would now struggle to repay loans were outweighed by
expectations it could get a better price for its nutrition business
from a new suitor.
Associated Press | CF Industries said Canadian regulators do not intend to challenge its $4.7 billion takeover of Terra Industries. The deal would create one of the world’s biggest fertilizer companies.
From Plastics News | Lake Forest-based Solo Cup will buy take-out container maker InnoWare Plastic Inc. for $24 million. Its president and CEO, Robert Korzenski, said that deal will contribute positively to the company’s earnings.
Associated Press via Bloomberg | Walgreen Co. said Tuesday that the Federal Trade Commission has cleared its acquisition of New York City drugstore chain Duane Reade. The sale will give Walgreens 257 Duane Reade stores in the New York metro area, making it the biggest drugstore operator in the largest U.S. market.
Dow Jones Newswires | TreeHouse Foods Inc. expects sales of
private-label food to keep growing and hopes to make an acquisition in
that space by the middle of next year, said Chief Executive Sam Reed in
an interview.
Reed said that any acquisitions the company makes would be within the
private-label food industry and that its current lines of credit allow
it to go for a deal of up to $200 million.
Chicago-based private equity investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC has entered into an agreement to acquire BWAY holding company for $915 million. Based in Atlanta, BWAY is a leading North American supplier of rigid containers and operates 20 plants throughout the United States and Canada.
Associated Press | Zhejiang Geely Holding Group has signed a
binding deal to buy Ford Motor Co.’s Volvo Cars unit for $1.8 billion,
representing a coup for the independent Chinese automaker which is
aiming to expand in Europe.
The purchase gives Geely a European luxury car brand with a reputation
for safety and quality at a time when China, which last year surpassed
the U.S. as the world’s largest car market, is eager to improve its
competitiveness by acquiring foreign automotive brands that might help
it improve its technology and expand into overseas markets.
By Julie Wernau | Nokia has signed a deal to purchase a privately-held Chicago company that provides mobile internet platforms that can be used on smart phones. The move comes as cellular providers scramble for their share of the booming smart
phone market.
The company announced Friday that it will acquire 100 percent of the
outstanding shares of Novarra, Inc. — a 100-employee company that
provides browsing, search, applications, video and advertising platforms
for mobile devices — and expects the deal to close in the second
quarter. The deal would make Novarra a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nokia.
Financial details were not disclosed.
Associsated Press | The security company formerly known as Blackwater shed its aviation
division Thursday, selling the unit for $200 million to AAR Corp in a
bid to strengthen the firm’s balance sheet.
Wood Dale, Ill.-based AAR will get two aviation units that operate
under the umbrella name of Aviation Worldwide Services. That division
has a fleet of 58 aircraft, many of which were used under U.S.
government contract in Afghanistan for Blackwater, which now operates
under the name Xe Services.
From the Pioneer Press | A unit of Telephone and Data Systems Inc., bought VISI Inc., Minnesota’s largest
locally-owned data center services and managed Internet hosting provider, in a $17.8 million deal.
VISI, headquartered in the Twin Cities, provides managed hosting,
co-location and cloud-computing services to businesses.
By Wailin Wong |
Abbott Laboratories has completed its $123 million purchase of Starlims
Technologies Ltd., a company that specializes in analyzing laboratory
data.
Abbott announced the deal in December. The North Chicago-based drug and
medical-device company said the acquisition will bolster its position in
laboratory informatics, or managing “the increasing amount of data
generated in laboratories.” Starlims makes Web-based software
applications that store, retrieve and analyze this data, Abbott said.
Shares of Abbott rose 0.8 percent to $53.87 on Monday.
