{"id":14412,"date":"2018-01-17T17:30:54","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T17:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=14412"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:59:12","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:59:12","slug":"predatory-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=14412","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Predatory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An investment firm is still aiming for a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpredatory\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 takeover of engineering company GKN despite having two bids rejected in recent days.<\/p>\n

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In response, Unite held an emergency meeting of GKN<\/a> stewards today (January 17) to discuss the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdestructive\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 bid.<\/p>\n

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The union is calling on GKN shareholders to spurn speculator Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advances and demanding the government block its attempts.<\/p>\n

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Unite is the main union representing workers across GKN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s UK automotive, aerospace and research and development divisions which employ a total of 6,000 workers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

GKN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s board have twice declined offers from Melrose, which specialises in taking over other businesses, rebuffing a \u00c2\u01417bn offer made on Friday<\/a> and a \u00c2\u01417.4bn offer made today (January 17).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, Melrose is still attempting to win GKN investors over. The takeover bid<\/a> comes after GKN suffered profit warnings in October and November.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Birmingham GKN convenor and European Works Council chair Mick Forbes said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMelrose has a track record of cutting costs, which normally translates into redundancies and job losses, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obviously a big concern for the workforce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Big concern’<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been at GKN for 40 years and every time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ended up in a difficult situation we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been able to get ourselves out of it. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re better sticking with the present board. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a plan to turn things round and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re determined to fight this all the way \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as are the GKN unions in Holland and Spain.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

GKN Filton convenor John Sweeney also said staff are worried about the future of their jobs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re concerned as well that this could be used a lever to change terms and conditions to increase shareholder profits if the bid doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go through.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke said if the government allows the bid to succeed, GKN, one of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oldest engineering firms, faces being asset stripped.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is a predatory unwanted bid for a long standing engineering company, one of the biggest in the country, and our members don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf the government stands back and watches it happen, their industrial strategy will be in tatters, because all Melrose will do is sweat GKN and sell it on.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An investment firm is still aiming for a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpredatory\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 takeover of engineering company GKN despite having two bids rejected in recent days.   In response, Unite held an emergency meeting of GKN stewards today (January 17) to discuss the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdestructive\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 bid.   The union is calling on GKN shareholders to spurn speculator Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advances and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[519,55,690],"wps_subtitle":"Investment firm targets GKN \u00e2\u20ac\u201c again","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26468,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14412\/revisions\/26468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}