Proposal For Revised Takeover Rules

The Swedish Corporate Governance Board (Sw. Kollegiet för sven­sk bo­lagsstyrn­ing) has an­nounced a pro­pos­al re­gard­ing amend­ments to the Takeover Rules con­cern­ing Nasdaq Stockholm and Nordic Growth Market NGM as well as the mul­ti­lat­er­al trad­ing fa­cil­i­ties First North, Nordic MTF and AktieTorget. The re­vised rules are pro­posed to come in­to ef­fect on 1 April 2018.

The pro­pos­al es­sen­tial­ly con­tains the fol­low­ing amend­ments.

If it is cer­tain that the bid­der will not be grant­ed nec­es­sary per­mits from the au­thor­i­ties with­in the max­i­mum ac­cep­tance pe­ri­od of nine months, the bid­der shall with­out un­rea­son­able de­lay with­draw the of­fer or seek an ex­emp­tion from the Swedish Securities Council (Sw. Aktiemarknadsnämnden) in or­der to be able to ex­tend the ac­cep­tance pe­ri­od. The bid­der shall as soon as pos­si­ble an­nounce if the bid­der re­solves to with­draw the of­fer or to seek an ex­emp­tion. Hence, the bid­der can­not pas­sive­ly wait un­til the ac­cep­tance pe­ri­od ends, but must with­draw the of­fer or seek an ex­emp­tion from the Swedish Securities Council. The ex­emp­tion re­gard­ing ex­ten­sion of the max­i­mum ac­cep­tance pe­ri­od of nine months will usu­al­ly on­ly be grant­ed if sup­port­ed by the tar­get com­pa­ny. In case the bid­der seeks an ex­emp­tion and the Swedish Securities Council de­nies such ex­emp­tion, the bid­der must as soon as pos­si­ble with­draw the of­fer.

According to the cur­rent Takeover Rules, if a sub­mit­ted of­fer is not com­plet­ed, the bid­der or a par­ty close­ly-re­lat­ed to the bid­der may not make an of­fer to ac­quire shares in the tar­get com­pa­ny, or ac­quire suf­fi­cient shares in the tar­get com­pa­ny to trig­ger the re­quire­ment to make a manda­to­ry of­fer, with­in the fol­low­ing 12 months. However, ac­cord­ing to the pro­pos­al, the fol­low­ing will ap­ply. If a bid­der, who has with­drawn an of­fer as a re­sult of not be­ing grant­ed nec­es­sary per­mits from the au­thor­i­ties with­in the max­i­mum 9-month ac­cep­tance pe­ri­od, is be­ing grant­ed such nec­es­sary per­mits from the au­thor­i­ties, the bid­der may an­nounce a new of­fer with­in four weeks af­ter be­ing grant­ed the nec­es­sary per­mits with­out hav­ing to ob­serve the 12-month pe­ri­od. Accordingly, the bid­der may an­nounce a new of­fer with­in four weeks from the grant­ed per­mit even though the 12-month pe­ri­od has not elapsed.

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