KEY POINTS:
NZX-LISTED Life Pharmacy will withdraw its takeover offer for Pharmacy Brands after shareholders in the target company voted to allow a rival bid to proceed.
Yesterday morning Life Pharmacy lodged an offer of $9.20 a share for 100 per cent of Pharmacy Brands.
But the bid was always conditional on shareholders knocking back a rival offer by ProPharma - of $8.40 for the shares of Pharmacy Brands' majority stake holder, API Healthcare.
The ProPharma offer is for API's 67 per cent stake and is not being made to all shareholders.
Pharmacy Brands was created in 2003 through a merger of Unichem, Amcal and Dispensary First brands.
The Takeover Code requires that bids for majority control which are not made to all shareholders must be approved by a shareholder vote.
At a special meeting yesterday shareholders voted to approve the ProPharma bid.
"The timing of the meeting, which was held a bare 10 days from when the notice was filed, meant that Pharmacy Brands shareholders did not get the time to fully consider our offer and its implications for their business," Life Pharmacy chairperson Liz Coutts said.
"In fact the majority of proxies were cast before shareholders knew what was on the table."
The Life bid would now be withdrawn and the opportunity to explore synergies between the companies would be lost, she said.
"Life Pharmacy remains committed to growth, expanding its share of the market," she said.
Life shares closed down 2c at 83c.
