Abbott (NYSE: ABT) appears to be part of the trend of large companies advising their shareholders to avoid unsolicited mini-tender offers.
The Abbott Park, Illinois–based maker of diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines posted a news release today in which it advised shareholders to ignore an unsolicited mini-tender offer from TRC Capital Investment Corp. (TRC).
Mini-tender offers seek to buy less than 5% of a company’s shares from investors, enabling the offerer to avoid making the type of disclosures that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires of larger offerers. The SEC has cautioned investors to carefully scrutinize mini-tender offers to ensure they aren’t being caught off-guard on the price.
The TRC offer, scheduled to expire shortly after midnight on May 17, would purchase up to 1 million Abbott shares, representing 0.06% of the company’s outstanding shares, according to Abbott.
Said Abbott: “TRC’s offer price of $112.38 per share in cash is approximately 4.5% lower than the $117.69 closing price of Abbott common shares on April 14, 2022, the last closing price prior to commencement of the offer.
“Abbott does not recommend or endorse TRC’s unsolicited below-market mini-tender offer and recommends that shareholders not tender their shares because the offer is at a price significantly below the current market price of Abbott common shares.”
ABT shares were down more than 1%, at $118.06 apiece, in morning trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index, which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies, was down 1.6%.