Small shareholders of Norma to Autoliv: "it is unfair"
28.06.2010, 14:31Although Norma, the Estonian seatbelt maker that belongs to Autoliv, is officially delisted from Tallinn Stock Exchange from today, more than 500 small shareholders refused to accept the takeover price offered by Autoliv, writes Aripaev.
The largest of these small shareholders, Urmas Uustal, who holds 65,157 shares of Norma, says that the price offered by Autoliv is not fair and wants over 8 million kroons for his holding instead of 6 million.
"The Swedes are taking advantage of the fact that Estonian laws allow companies to take over people's assets. What can we do if the Estonian state does not protect the Estonian shareholders. The Swedes are used to getting from Estonia everything that they want," said Uustal.
Speaking of the further investments, Uustal says that he has no interest in investing in Swedish-owned companies. "Perhaps French or other companies, this is all about business culture," he adds.
Autoliv's vice presidence Mats Ödman said that the squeeze-out was proceeding as planned and all remaining shall shareholders should receive payment for their holding this Wednesday. Ödman adds that Norma's executives have more accurate information when the actual payment will be made.
Another small shareholders Kalle Tull says that he has not accepted the offer. "What will be, will be," said Tull, adding that the Estonian state should offer better protection to small shareholders. "It was the state that listed Norma on the stock exchange and the state should protect small shareholders," says Tull who owns 10,000 Norma shares worth almost a million kroons.
Kristjan Hänni, partner and fund manager of Kawe Kapital, says that the recent takeovers of Estonian Telecom and Autoliv in Estonia by Swedish companies show that large shareholders do everything to minimise the price of the takeover target. "Large shareholders don't want to increase the market value of the local company, they are not optimising their capital structure, avoid share buybacks, don't motivate management with share options, lend money to large shareholder at dubious terms, etc. If you add the market turmoil in financial markets, the criteria of whether the offer price is fair become very unreliable and unobjective," said Hänni.