Garmin in bidding war with TomTom for Tele Atlas
Garmin announced today its intention to make a public offer for all outstanding shares of map data provider Tele Atlas. The offer, euro 24.50 per share, is 15% higher than TomTom’s offer.
But this isn’t just about share price. The Tele Atlas board and share holders must decide what’s in their long-term best interest. Garmin spells this out, saying in part:
"Garmin’s broad international footprint, global market share and strong balance sheet will promote the growth ambitions and prospects of Tele Atlas and its employees."
More from the press release:
Commenting on the announcement, Garmin CEO Dr. Min Kao said: "Given the high growth and rapid change the navigation market has undergone to date, we feel that now is the right time for Garmin to move ahead with this proposed combination with Tele Atlas. Together, we believe that we can create the best available mapping solutions for our customers around the world. We also intend to make Tele Atlas’ content available to the entire navigation market on a non-discriminatory basis, promoting healthy competition, with significant benefits to the navigation market and all its consumers."
It is Garmin’s intention that Tele Atlas, following the completion of the strategic combination with Garmin, will continue its business as a separate entity, based and headquartered in the Netherlands. Garmin wishes to retain the existing management team and all of the Tele Atlas employees and would welcome them into its global family of nearly 8,000 employees. It also strongly believes that the increased scale of operations of the proposed combination will offer exciting and enhanced career opportunities to Tele Atlas’ employees and will create additional jobs in the Netherlands.
