On March 10, Nano Dimension announced a formal bid to acquire the world leader in 3D printing, Stratasys. The proposed price was $18 per share, translating into a total transaction value of $1.1 billion. This week, Stratasys’ management unanimously rejected the offer after consulting with independent financial and legal advisers. The decision seems to be final – which, in general, should not be a surprise to anyone… Nano Dimension is an incomparably smaller company, which in addition has been torn by an internal power conflict in the company with its own shareholders for several months.
In an official statement, Stratasys’ management announced that after reviewing the proposal, it concluded that Nano’s proposal significantly undervalues the company in light of its own prospects and a sale is not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. The company’s standalone plan for its future operations will generate “significantly more” shareholder value than the Nano Dimension proposal.
A week after Nano Dimension acquired a 12.12% stake in Stratasys in July 2022, Stratasys implemented a shareholder rights plan that is typically used as a defensive strategy against hostile takeovers. In between those two chapters of the story, Nano Dimension CEO Yoav Stern told TCT that his company was “not necessarily” interested in acquiring Stratasys.
Nano Dimension owns approximately 14.5% of Stratasys (13.7% fully diluted) and is the largest shareholder as of July 2022. A week after acquiring a 12.12% stake in Stratasys, the company has implemented a “shareholder rights plan” which is usually used as a defensive strategy against hostile takeovers. Thus, the idea that a year later it would agree to hand over the entire controlling stake seemed doomed to failure from the beginning.
At the same time, in the Nano Dimension itself, a fierce – and what is worse, fully public – struggle for power is taking place. On March 20, 2023, Murchinson Ltd.’s largest shareholder reported that approximately 92% of shareholders supported the proposals, which included the removal of Yoav Stern as president and CEO and the removal of three other company directors. Murchinson also nominated Kenneth H. Traub and Dr. Joshua Rosenweig as their successors.
A day later, on March 21, Nano Dimension released its own statement saying its shareholders did not support Murchinson’s proposal at a meeting they called “invalid”. They also sent a message to other shareholders to ignore all voting results published by Murchinson.
To make this soap opera even more bizarre, Yoav Sterna, CEO of Nano Dimension, posts daily YouTube videos of his “fight” with Murchinson and his failed Stratasys takeover (he posted four today alone!). It’s not clear who Stern is targeting these videos? What is certain is that they do not build the image of Nano Dimension as a “very serious company”…
Source: www.stratasys.com
