IT services company Tech Mahindra?s wait for the anti-trust approval from the US authority is finally over as it received the same on Thursday. The company had earlier filed for an exemption to go ahead with the Rs 1,154-crore open offer and was granted that.
Tech Mahindra’s open offer under its 100% subsidiary Venturbay Consultants, for the purchase of an additional 20% stake in Satyam Computer Services, therefore, could start on June 12 and will close on July 1. The company wouldn’t have been able to go ahead with the open offer without the exemption approval.
The company, in a filing to the exchanges, said: “Our request for early termination of the applicable waiting period relating to the offer has been granted under the Hart-Scott Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.” Tech Mahindra also said, “The condition to the offer with respect to anti-trust approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act has been satisfied.” The anti-trust approval in the US was needed as both companies, Satyam and Tech Mahindra, have technology outsourcing works in the US, and also because Satyam is listed on the NYSE. The open offer has already got anti-trust approval from Germany’s competition regulator, Federal Cartel Office, and India?s two premier bourses–the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange.
Tech Mahindra announced an open offer on April 22 for buying of 20% additional equity in Satyam at Rs 58 per share–the same price at which it had bought a 31% stake through a preferential issue of equity shares.