(Reuters) – Thermo Fisher Scientific <TMO.N> said on Thursday it has terminated its agreement to buy Qiagen <QIA.DE> after its tender offer failed to get enough support from the investors of the German genetic testing company.
Thermo Fisher had in July sweetened its offer, valuing the company at 11.3 billion euros ($13.38 billion) after pressure from some Qiagen investors, particularly after the German firm said it was seeing strong demand for products related to coronavirus testing.
Still, hedge fund Davidson Kempner had said it would reject the new offer as it “falls short of fair value”.
Thermo Fisher said the number of Qiagen shares tendered into the offer fell short of its threshold of 66.67%. Only 47.02% Qiagen shares had been tendered by the acceptance period, which led to the offer lapsing, it said.
As part of the sweetened offer, Thermo Fisher had reduced the minimum acceptance threshold from 75% of outstanding ordinary share capital.
U.S.-listed shares of Qiagen were up 3% at $49.55 before the bell.
($1 = 0.8445 euros)
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
