PARIS (Reuters) - France's Safran on Thursday launched a $9 billion agreed cash offer worth 29.47 euros per share for aircraft seats manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace to create the world's third largest aerospace supplier.
In a joint statement with Zodiac, Safran announced the move three months after Zodiac's main rival B/E Aerospace agreed to be absorbed by systems maker Rockwell Collins and more than six years after seeing a preliminary approach rebuffed by Zodiac's controlling family shareholders.
The companies said a subsequent merger between Safran and Zodiac would boost earnings per share from year one.
The offer values Zodiac at a 26 percent premium to Wednesday's closing share price of 23.31 euros. The initial cash offer is worth just over 8.5 billion euros ($9 billion), based on Thomson Reuters share data.
Safran said it would propose a subsequent merger on the basis of 0.485 Safran shares for one Zodiac share excluding a special dividend of 5.5 euros to Safran shareholders.
Zodiac has been recovering from a nearly three-year production crisis in its seats division.
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Analysts have expressed mixed views about whether it would make sense for Safran to renew its interest in Zodiac, which had a market value of 6.7 billion euros at Wednesday's close.
Zodiac Aerospace is controlled by a group of families that own 23.8 percent of the stock and 36.6 percent of the voting rights and the investment vehicle of the Peugeot family, which owns 5.2 percent of shares and 7.3 percent of voting rights.
The French state owns 14 percent of Safran.
Zodiac has persistently vowed to stay independent but Chief Executive Olivier Zarrouati said last March it would be "receptive to any offer that is in the interests of the company".
(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Cyril Altmeyer,; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
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