Fiat Industrial Raises CNH Bid After First Offer Spurned

Fiat Industrial SpA (FI) raised its offer for the remaining stake in CNH Global NV (CNH) that doesn’t already own after the American company spurned an earlier bid.

Fiat Industrial offered to pay CNH investors a special dividend of $10 per share, the Turin-based company said today. Fiat Industrial owners will receive one share in the merged entity for each share they own, while CNH stockholders would get 3.828 shares for each share.

CNH last month rejected Fiat Industrial’s proposal to combine the two companies in a share exchange with no premium for CNH investors as “inadequate.” Fiat Industrial, which already owns 88 percent of CNH, gave the American company two days to decide whether to accept “this best and final offer.”

Fiat Industrial Chairman Sergio Marchionne, who’s targeting more than 25 billion euros ($32 billion) in sales for Fiat Industrial this year, is seeking to create the world’s third- largest capital-goods company in the combination. The merged entity would have a product range spanning Iveco delivery trucks, New Holland harvesters and FPT ship engines.

CNH gained as much as 7.3 percent to $47.69, the highest since Jan. 31, and was up 4.1 percent as of 9:54 a.m. in New York trading. Fiat Industrial was 1.2 percent in Milan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tommaso Ebhardt in Milan at tebhardt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net