GKN says that it has received a preliminary and unsolicited proposal from financial services firm Melrose to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of GKN at a price of 405 p per share, comprising 80% in new Melrose shares and 20% in cash’
‘The Board of GKN has considered the Proposal together with its financial advisers, Gleacher Shacklock, J.P. Morgan Cazenove and UBS Limited, and has unanimously rejected it,’ GKN said.
In other news, Anne Stevens, currently interim chief executive, has agreed to become the group’s new chief executive with immediate effect.
Since her appointment, Stevens has reportedly taken leadership of an ongoing internal review of all GKN’s businesses which has led to the development of a transformation plan to improve GKN’s performance.
‘The board believes that Anne Stevens has the track record to transform GKN,’ said GKN chairman, Mike Turner. ‘Her operational and strategic skills are ideally suited to GKN and the board is very impressed with the contribution she has made so far in setting out plans for a significant improvement in the Group’s performance.’
Improvement plans
After a successful turnaround of the Ford Motor Company’s businesses in Mexico, Canada and South America, Stevens was appointed as COO for the Americas where she developed the transformation plan for Ford’s US business. Subsequently, Anne became chairman, CEO and president of Carpenter Technology. She was a non-executive director of Lockheed Martin from 2002 until she stepped down at the end of 2017 to take up her executive role at GKN.
‘GKN is a world leader with the potential to perform even better,’ said Stevens. ‘We have been working extensively over the past few months to develop detailed cash and profit improvement plans. I am relishing the challenge of delivering that potential with a new group-wide improvement programme underway. GKN has a great executive team leading a dedicated and focused workforce with strong market positions and outstanding technologies. I am committed to, and I am confident that we can, deliver more for our shareholders while improving what we do for our customers and supporting our employees.’
This story is reprinted from material from GKN, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
