ADELAIDE, Australia (Dec. 12) — Bridgestone Corp. is seeking to buy out the minority shareholders of its Bridgestone Australia Ltd. subsidiary in a deal valued at about $38.5 million.
Adelaide-based Bridgestone Australia has offered to buy out the minority shareholders — who own 39.7 percent of the company — for $2.65 per share, a premium of 21.4 percent over the weighted average share price in the three months prior to the announcement, the company said.
If all goes according to plan, the deal will be complete and Bridgestone Australia will delist from the Adelaide Stock Exchange by the end of May.
Bridgestone Australia posted a net profit of $2.6 million for the first nine months of fiscal 2006, down 63.7 percent from the corresponding 2005 period because of fewer tire sales to local car manufacturers and the higher price of rubber.
The company started in 1939 as SA Rubber Mills Pty. Ltd. and was listed on the Adelaide Stock Exchange 10 years later. In 1963 U.S. Rubber Co. (later Uniroyal) acquired a 25-percent stake and took the company into tire production at a new plant in Salisbury, South Australia.
Bridgestone bought majority control of the company in December 1980.