*
* Both sides only met once during three-month battle
* GKN investors narrowly back
By Ben Martin
On Friday January 5, Simon Peckham rang GKN's advisers at JPMorgan to arrange a meeting with the FTSE 100-listed aerospaceand automotive parts supplier.
The gathering took place the following Monday at theinvestment bank's offices next to the River Thames atBlackfriars in
It was there that Peckham and
The cash-and-shares bid valued the engineering company at7.4 billion pounds (
The codename was a reference to the model of carmanufactured by Volkswagen, which is one of GKN's biggestcustomers, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The meeting between the four executives lasted for an hourat most, sources familiar with the situation said.
It marked the only time in the fierce battle that followedthat executives from
The initial bid was swiftly rejected by GKN, which made theapproach public on January 12, when it also appointed Stevenspermanently as CEO and disclosed it was examining an alternativeplan to demerge its main aerospace and automotive divisions.
At the time, GKN dismissed the
WAR OF WORDS
That set the tone for an acrimonious war of words betweenthe two companies that lasted right up until the takeoverbattle's denouement this week, when
To win the fight,
It was a narrow victory for
When the deadline expired,
Indeed, the fight between the two companies had become sofinely balanced in its latter stages that even an adviser to
"I'm confident but it would be wrong of me to say I'm notnervous," said the adviser, who declined to be named.
The
The political attention was driven by GKN's participation in
This is because the turnaround specialist sells companiesonce it improves their performance, a strategy that fuelledconcerns about jobs and the possibility an overseas buyer couldacquire GKN's sensitive aerospace business.
Since listing on
It typically owns the firms it buys for three to five years.GKN is its biggest deal yet.
The aerospace and automotive components business isconsidered a mainstay of
Today, GKN employs more than 58,000 staff around the worldand supplies parts for vehicles and aircraft including thePorsche 918 Spyder supercar, the Blackhawk military helicopterand the Eurofighter Typhoon.
DANA APPROACH
Two profit warnings in October and November caused byproblems at GKN's North American aerospace business, which sentits shares tumbling and prompted the departure of the executiveoriginally selected to be its next CEO, gave
However,
Late last year,
The British company and its advisers, which includedGleacher Shacklock, JP Morgan and UBS, started behind-the-scenestalks with the
The resulting agreement between GKN and Dana would form thecenterpiece of the engineer's defence against
Having already disclosed plans to split itself up, on March9 GKN announced a cash-and-shares deal to merge its automotivebusiness with Dana.
Along with a pledge to find a buyer for its powdermetallurgy business and return as much as 2.5 billion pounds incash to shareholders, this would leave GKN purely focused on itsaerospace business.
This gave GKN investors a choice: accept a deal that handedthem 60 percent of
In the end, a slim majority supported
"There's a lot of disappointed people at GKN at the moment,"an adviser to the engineer said on Thursday evening.(
