ACTIONS CORNER

GILDEMEISTER has launched a capital increase for cash. Present shareholders are being offered 15.4 million new shares at a ratio of four to one. From its headquarters in Bielefeld the company indicates that this corresponds to almost a quarter of the total share capital. Analysts at Close Brothers Seydler say that at 14.50 Euros the share price is lower than that of stock market trading and will be highly attractive to investors. Furthermore, GILDEMEISTER seems to be oriented away from the ratio of 13 to 3 that has been the benchmark up to now. The machine tool manufacturer aims to increase share capital to raise 210 million Euros to be used for developing business abroad.

ProSiebenSat.1 Media On August 13 the company announced that the preferred non-voting bearer stock purchased on the stock market would be turned into ordinary nominative voting stock. The transformation came into force on August 16, when the amendment to the company’s articles of association enabling the initiative was lodged with company registration authorities. Up to then, market trading had been limited to preferred stock to the exclusion of ordinary stock. The far-reaching changes to shareholder composition led to the voting rights of the KKR and Permira holding in the TV group to be halved from 88 to 44 percent.  Now that the finance companies are out, will it cross any new investor’s mind to make anything approaching a major move into ProSieben?