Vodafone urges Kabel Deutschland shareholders to tender for offer

Vodafone has urged Kabel Deutschland shareholders to tender their shares for its offer for the German company amid fears the bid may not get the required votes to pass.The UK company warned that there would be no extra acceptance period for its €7.7bn (£6.5bn) offer if the 75% acceptance threshold was not met by the deadline of midnight on September 11th Frankfurt time. Vodafone, which has agreed to sell its stake in Verizon Wireless for $130bn (£84bn), said the offer terms for were unchanged and would not be amended. Vodafone said: "Vodafone urges all shareholders who have not tendered to date to do so as the Offer will lapse if the 75% minimum acceptance condition is not met by then. There will not be any additional acceptance period should the 75% acceptance condition not be met."The Financial Times reported that some Kabel Deutschland shareholders feared the deal would not get through the vote because some funds would wait until the second phase of the two-stage vote to tender. A number of big German tender offers have failed because of this, the investors said.The offer is for €84.50 per Kabel Deutschland share in cash, automatically increasing by €2.50 to include the final dividend if settlement of the offer happens before the day of the meeting for Kabel Deutschland approves the payout.Merger clearance is now required by the European Commission (EC) only, after Germany's Federal Cartel Office (FCO) told Vodafone that it would not ask the EC to refer the offer to the FCO.