K+S Rejects Unsolicited Takeover Offer Of Potash Corp – Quick Facts

Potash producer K+S AG is rejecting a takeover offer by Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.

Potash said June 25 it had proposed takeover negotiations. CEO Norbert Steiner added that Potash “made no firm commitments to protect the interests” of his company’s more than 14,000 employees.

Today, K+S officially rejected the offer as “too low” and “according to our perception, PotashCorp wants to take advantage of a valuation gap to take over K+S in order to gain control of Legacy”. “Obviously, it makes ultimately little sense for Potash Corp.to operate our German sites at the current level”. It has already spent two billion euros on the project, which it says is the first potash mine to be developed from scratch in 40 years. It will start producing by the end of 2016. (POT, POT.TO) to acquire all outstanding shares of K+S Aktiengesellschaft for 41 Euro per share.

A spokesman for Potash declined to comment.

K+S said it expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to reach 1.6 billion euros by 2020, up from nearly 900 million in 2014, helped by the Legacy project.