A FedEx truck makes its way to a delivery (Photo : Reuters)
FedEx and TNT Express both confirmed via a joint statement that they have reached a "conditional agreement" which means that one of the world's largest forwarding companies has acquired TNT's 33% premium share at 8 pounds per share on Apr. 2, BBC reported.
The move was two years in the making after United Parcel Service (UPS) backed out of a 5.2 Euro bid for the Dutch firm. UPS pulled out due to an opposition from the EU competition authorities which said that there were no realistic prospect of the approval for UPS's bid from the EU Commission. After the back out, FedEx has since undertook restructuring program, costs cutting, selling operations and investing heavily in its road network to hold on to customers in what has been a weak European market for business package deliveries. The merging giants also expect the deal to be completely done on the first half of 2016.
USA Today also said that the regional headquarters will still remain in the Netherlands and FedEx has promised to maintain the TNT Express brand tagline "for an appropriate period".
TNT Express CEO said during an interview that the offer comes at a time of important transformations within TNT Express. He also said that TNT Express is fully geared to executing our stand-alone strategy.
Although the deal is close to a done deal, the terms of the takeover allows a competitor to make an offer within the next eight weeks and if that happens, the current deal (with FedEx) might and can be terminated if the other offer will exceed the existing proposal by 8%.
