Sun Pharmaceutical Industries today accused the board of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries of trying to 'sidestep' real issues as the two companies continue to lock horns over their failed merger deal.
The Israeli firm rejected Sun's proposal to increase the offer price to bring an end to their dispute, and it called for a shareholders' referendum.
"It is very obvious that by suggesting a referendum, the Taro board is helping the Levitt/Moros families (the current promoters of Taro) to sidestep the Option Agreement," the Sun Pharma spokesperson told PTI.
Under the Option Agreement, signed at the same time as the original Merger Agreement, these families are bound to sell their shares to Sun Pharma, irrespective of the outcome of the shareholders' vote on the merger proposal, the Mumbai-based firm said.
Meanwhile, Taro has also turned down the two proposals sent by Sun Pharma.
"Our board has asked me to inform you that it did not view the two options set forth in your proposal as constructive or even 'in the ballpark," Taro Chairman Barrie Levitt said in a letter to Sun Pharma Managing Director Dilip Shanghvi.
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Both the merger proposals of Sun, as well as its tender offer alternative, involved prices that are much less than the $10.25 per share price that Sun paid for Brandes' eight per cent minority interest in Taro in February 2008, and which "you proposed to pay in your revised merger proposal last May", the letter said.
Levitt also made a proposal for conducting a 'referendum' by Taro's shareholders on the merger agreement and the open offer made by Sun Pharma.