Airgas

More must be said about Air Products versus Airgas.

AP is now offering to buy its rival at $63.50 a share, but the market is valuing Airgas at a premium above that. You can see this for yourself in the chart nearby, reproducing the trading from Friday, July 9.

Both companies provide gas to industrial and commercial users. Among others, these users include refineries, which remove sulfur from crude oil, by saturating the fuel with hydrogen first, producing hydrogen sulfide, which can then be removed from the mix. ARG is also apparently involved in the liquefaction of natural gas.

Airgas, based in Radnor, Pennsylvania, has said this: "This Board has unanimously concluded that Air Products’ unsolicited tender offer and proxy solicitation for its hand-picked nominees are an opportunistic attempt to advance Air Products’ goal of transferring the value of Airgas to Air Products at a grossly inadequate price.

"The Board continues to recommend that stockholders reject the Air Products offer."

Here is what BusinessWeek has to say.

Cisco's Offer for Tandberg

Cisco Systems has extended the offer period in its effort to acquire Tandberg, a Norway based company. It raised its bid in November to 10 billion Norwegian crowns (or $3.37 billion US dollars) -- a raise of 10%, and this latest extension likely means that the higher offer is getting some traction.

Reuters is quoting one analyst thus: "I think Cisco will succeed. They would not have extended the offer if they had a low acceptance level."

Cisco is the world's largest network equipment maker. Tandberg is the leader in videoconferencing equipment -- which sounds like a natural hook-up. Apparently, videoconference is a market segregated by "tiers," and Tandberg's great strength is in the mid-tier, in terms of price and sophistication.

Even before the increase, Cisco's initial offer was a 38.3% premium on the closing share price of Tandberg as of July 15. That is how it is characterized on Cisco's corporate blog in a entry by senior vice president Ned Hooper.

But is July 15th a relevant day? Hooper calls it "one day prior to major media reports of a possible transaction."

But as you'll see if you go to that blog entry and look at the comments beneath it, some doubt the significance of July 15th as a measuring point. The Norwegian stock market as a whole apparently rose significantly in the weeks subsequent to that "major media report," so some at least of the change in Tandberg's stock value reflects that broader rise, and is unrelated to the possibiliuty of this transaction. Since the investors in Tandberg would have participated in that rise anyway (so runs the reasoning) estimate of the true size of the "premium" have to be adjusted.