AOL is offering 215 Swedish crowns per share. Shares have been trading for more than that on the open market, says the Associated Press, because investors expect AOL to increase its offer. AOL says it does not intend to do so.
AOL first announced the buyout decision in January. DoubleTrader’s largest investor, Arctic Ventures and about 20% of the shareholders said they would be approving the deal.
AOL wants to integrate DoubleTrader into its Advertising.com business to enhance its online advertising services in the U.S. and Europe. AOL’s Swedish holding company, AOLS Holdings, has received government approval for the buyout.
Under the agreement between DoubleTrader and Time Warner-owned AOL, 90% of the shareholders must approve the deal. The DoubleTrader board has unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the offer, but many shareholders are still blocking, in the hopes that AOL will increase its offer.
“After carefully evaluating the Offer and considering the future prospects of TradeDoubler, it is the Board’s assessment that the transaction is in the shareholders’ best interest,” said DoubleTrader board chairman Kjell Duveblad in a statement in January. “TradeDoubler will get the opportunity to increase its strong growth by leveraging AOL’s popular Web destinations, Advertising.com’s comprehensive knowledge and experience in internet campaign advertisers as well as from the combination of full set of online advertising solutions of the combined businesses.”
AOL extended the current offer deadline to draw in the holdouts, and said that it wants the deal to go through by March 21st.
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