Aixtron has recently announced that Grand Chip Investment GmbH (GCI) has decided to halt 670 million euro ($710.60 million) public takeover offer for the acquisition of all shares, including all shares represented by ADSs, of Aixtron by GCI published on July 29, 2016. The offer has lapsed due to the non-fulfilment of an offer condition.
According to the announcement of GCI, the offer condition of the clearance of the transaction by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) or the U.S. President laid out in Section 4.2.2 (ii) of the offer document has not been fulfilled as a consequence of the order of the President of the United States dated December 2, 2016 prohibiting the acquisition of the U.S. business of AIXTRON by the Chinese bidder.
Consequently, the public takeover process initiated by GCI has come to end in a way that it cannot be consummated any more.
In other news reports the China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) is reported to criticised the United States for thwarting a Chinese investment fund's proposed acquisition of German semiconductor equipment maker.
The news reports that CEO Martin Goetzeler views two possible routes of action in moving the company forward:
- Continue to invest in new equipment at high development and scale-up expense and operation under the optimism that the markets for Aixtron's products recover
- Reorganise by shrinking, divesting non-core technologies and focus on a specialised offering
It will be interesting to see what options the company will pursue over the coming months.