ERICY largest shareholder would sell for $50.
Large Ericsson shareholder says could sell stake
STOCKHOLM, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Industrivarden, the largest
single shareholder of telecommunications giant Ericsson
, is prepared to sell its stake if it gets a good
offer, Swedish business daily Dagens Industri said on Saturday.
"We act in the best interest of our share owners, and can't
take other factors into consideration, even if a sale were very
bad for Sweden," Industrivarden AB Chief Executive
Claes Reutershiold was quoted by Dagens Industri as saying.
"If there is an offer of 400 crowns per share, it would be
very difficult for the (Ericsson) board of directors to say no,"
he was quoted by the daily as saying.
Ericsson , the world's third largest mobile phone
maker and leading producer of mobile phone infrastructure, saw
its shares close up six crowns at 270.50 crowns on Friday. This
would give Ericsson a market value of around 530 billion crowns,
Dagens Industri said.
Reutershiold holds a seat on the board of directors of
Ericsson. Industrivarden has a 28.1 percent share of Ericsson's
voting rights and 2.4 percent of share capital, while Swedish
investment giant Investor AB is the second largest
single shareholder of important voting rights, with 22.2 percent
of votes and 3.2 percent of capital in Ericsson.
Swedish financier Sven Hagstromer, a major shareholder of
Industrivarden AB, on Thursday warned that there was a risk that
Ericsson could be taken over by a North American giant like
Lucent Technologies Inc or Nortel Networks Corp
.
Ericsson has been hit over the last year by underperforming
stocks in comparison to Finnish rival Nokia , falling
profits and issuing two profit warnings in the last eight
months.
In July Ericsson's Chief Executive Sven-Christer Nilsson was
fired and replaced by his predecessor with Lars Ramqvist who has
temporary taken over the CEO post. Ramqvist has vowed he would
have Ericsson back on course by the end of 1999 by speeding up a
cost-cutting programme and mobile phones and by improving
fiances.
infobeat.com
Universal Currency Converter™ Results by Xenon Labs
Rates as of 1999.09.07 22:02:52 EDT. (Rates updated once per minute)
400.00 SEK Sweden Krona = 49.2151 USD United States Dollars |
