CEO of Haldex1:17
Thank you. Initially, I just want to say that I'm humbly aware of the situation we have that we have by no means not finalized our ownership situation yet. However, I thought it could be beneficial for you as an audience to have some very brief remarks on the situation from my side. So our board of directors have obviously carefully reviewed our company situation. They have also reviewed the different bids placed on us as a company and also the different bidders, and they have derived a clear recommendation the serif bid, and we view this as a company as a friendly acquisition of how the extra Mr. Left side. The basis for that conclusion is basically twofold. First of all, there is a very strong industry logic, strategic rationale in combining Seraphin Haldex. There is no overlap between our products, we complement each other very strongly, and we as a company could absolutely benefit from more electronics and more software development resources going forward.
The other factor is that there is very low risk in the transaction link to staff. As you heard Dr. Sommer say, they already have the antitrust clearances, and this can be a fairly quick process now can be finalized in the next couple of weeks, and a formal payment to the shareholders already in October, which is obviously very positive for them.
The Knorr situation is much more complicated. Nor is our main competitor. We offer eight different product lines as a company, and we compete with Knorr on all those eight lines. So that project will definitely lead into a phase two investigation in an antitrust perspective, and that can be over six to 12 months. And the regulatory bodies will, I assume, in the final ask for some divestitures or carve-outs in order to please them and have the competitive situation in a better way. That's easier said than done. We have eight larger plants globally, and seven of them are fully integrated. Means that we produce a lot of different products in those plants, so difficult to single out something. Or N'Diaye is also separate from those plants. So the antitrust situation is very tricky and can be lengthy. So the competitive situation and a disruptive transaction process is why our Board of Directors is more negative to ignore it. So it's more risk for the shareholders, much longer time before potential payments, if there is payment, and also more disrupted for us as a company. The customers will have a difficult time giving us more business when the ownership situation is clear, and that can also be situations where key people in the company might potentially leave in a situation like this. So that's what I wanted to say now. So back to you, Dr. Omer. Thank you.
