UCB welcomes Schwarz Pharma shareholders

UCB has announced that the acceptance level of its tender offer for shares of Schwarz Pharma has reached 87.62 per cent of the total outstanding share capital, or 86.6 per cent of the fully diluted share capital of the company.

Its tender offer for the company closed at midnight on December 28th 2006, with Schwarz Pharma shareholders that have tendered their shares by this date to receive 50 euros (33.77 pounds) in cash and 0.8735 of new UCB shares in exchange for each share sold.

The new UCB shares are due to be listed by Euronext Brussels on the Eurolist on January 8th 2007.

Roch Doliveux, chief executive officer of UCB, said: “We are very pleased with the results of our tender offer for Schwarz Pharma. The level of acceptances provides a solid basis for this exciting business combination.”

He added that the company was welcoming shareholders in Schwarz Pharma to UCB and thanked them for their support in helping to develop UCB into a leading next-generation biopharmaceutical firm.

Last month UCB announced that it had issued 35,565,268 to benefit those Schwarz Pharma shareholders that had tendered its shares in the first acceptance period of the company’s public offer that was announced on September 25th 2006 and ended December 8th 2006.