EXFO announces the filing of a voluntary tender offer for Astellia's shares
November 28 2017 - 7:33AM
PRESS
RELEASE
EXFO announces the
filing of a voluntary tender offer for Astellia's shares
-
EXFO, which
holds 33.1% of Astellia's equity, filed a voluntary public tender
offer for the company's remaining equity.
-
The offer will
be proposed at a price of 10 euros per Astellia
share.
-
The
independent expert confirmed the fairness of the
offer.
-
Astellia's
Board of Directors recommended the offer and considered that the
offer is in the interests of the company, its shareholders and its
employees.
RENNES, FRANCE; QUEBEC CITY,
CANADA, November 28, 2017 - Following the off-market
acquisitions of 33.1% of Astellia's equity ("Astellia") (ISIN code:
FR0004176535 - mnemonic: ALAST), EXFO Inc. ("EXFO") (NASDAQ: EXFO,
TSX: EXF) launched today an all-cash voluntary public tender offer
to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Astellia.
This offer will be proposed at a price of 10 euros
per Astellia share, the same amount that was paid by EXFO for the
off-market acquisitions. The price of 10 euros per share represents
a 44.7% premium over the unaffected closing share price of Astellia
on August 30, 2017, the day before the intention of EXFO to acquire
Astellia was announced, and a 56.7% premium over the
volume-weighted average share price over the last 12 months before
this date.
The full draft offer document will be available in
French on the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF)
(www.amf-france.org)
and
on
the
EXFO
(http://www.exfo.com/fr/bibliotheque/
documents-proceduraux-juridiques/astellia/projet-de-note-information)
websites.
The report provided by Associés en Finance,
appointed by Astellia as an independent expert, confirmed the
fairness of the offer's financial terms. On the basis of such
report, the Board of Directors of Astellia unanimously considered
that the public tender offer is the interests of the company, its
shareholders and its employees and therefore recommended that
Astellia's shareholders tender their shares to the offer.
Astellia has also filed today with the AMF a draft
document in response to the tender offer launched by EXFO, which
contains in particular the independent expert report and the
recommendation of Astellia's Board of Directors.
The full draft response document will be available
in French on the websites of the AMF (www.amffrance.org) and of
Astellia (www.astellia.com).
In accordance with applicable regulations to
foreign investments in France, EXFO obtained, on November 27, 2017,
the prior authorisation of the French Ministry of Economy for the
implementation of the offer.
The offer and both draft documents remain subject
to the review of the AMF.
About Astellia
Astellia is a leading provider of network and
subscriber intelligence enabling mobile operators to drive service
quality, maximize operational efficiency, reduce churn and develop
revenues. Its vendorindependent, real-time monitoring and
troubleshooting solution optimizes networks end-to-end, from radio
to core. Astellia's unique blend of products and services provides
automated optimization, actionable geolocated insights and big-data
analytics to Network Operations, Service Operations Center,
Customer Care and Marketing teams. Astellia has close partnerships
with more than 120 telecom operators. Based in France, Astellia has
significant operations in Spain and a strong presence in Canada,
Lebanon, Morocco and South Africa.
About EXFO
EXFO develops smarter network test, monitoring and
analytics solutions for the world's leading communications service
providers, network equipment manufacturers and webscale companies.
Since 1985, we've worked side by side with our customers in the
lab, field, data center, boardroom and beyond to pioneer essential
technology and methods for each phase of the network lifecycle. Our
portfolio of test orchestration and real-time 3D analytics
solutions turn complex into simple and deliver business-critical
insights from the network, service and subscriber dimensions. Most
importantly, we help our customers flourish in a rapidly
transforming industry where "good enough" testing, monitoring and
analytics just aren't good enough anymore-they never were for us,
anyway. For more information, visit EXFO.com and follow us on the
EXFO Blog.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we intend that
such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors
created thereby. Forward-looking statements are statements other
than historical information or statements of current condition.
Words such as may, expect, believe, plan, anticipate, intend,
could, estimate, continue or similar expressions or the negative of
such expressions are intended to identify forward-looking
statements. In addition, any statement that refers to expectations,
projections or other characterizations of future events and
circumstances are considered forwardlooking statements. They are
not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and
uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in
forward-looking statements due to various factors including, but
not limited to, macroeconomic uncertainty as well as capital
spending and network deployment levels in the telecommunications
industry (including our ability to quickly adapt cost structures
with anticipated levels of business and our ability to manage
inventory levels with market demand); future economic, competitive,
financial and market conditions; consolidation in the global
telecommunications test and service assurance industry and
increased competition among vendors; capacity to adapt our future
product offering to future technological changes; limited
visibility with regard to timing and nature of customer orders;
longer sales cycles for complex systems involving customers'
acceptances delaying revenue recognition; fluctuating exchange
rates; concentration of sales; timely release and market acceptance
of our new products and other upcoming products; our ability to
successfully expand international operations; our ability to
successfully integrate businesses that we acquire; and the
retention of key technical and management personnel. Assumptions
relating to the foregoing involve judgments and risks, all of which
are difficult or impossible to predict and many of which are beyond
our control. Other risk factors that may affect our future
performance and operations are detailed in our Annual Report, on
Form 20-F, and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities commissions. We
believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking
statements are reasonable based on information currently available
to us, but we cannot assure that the expectations will prove to
have been correct. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance
on these forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as
of the date of this document. Unless required by law or applicable
regulations, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any of
them to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date
of this document.
EXFO-F
For
information
Vance Oliver
Director, Investor Relations, EXFO (418) 683-0913, ext.
23733
vance.oliver@exfo.com
Christian Queffelec
President of Astellia Tel.: +33 299 048 060
bourse@astellia.com
EXFO announces the filing of a
voluntary tender offer for Astellia's s
This
announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf
of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely
responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: ASTELLIA via Globenewswire
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