The shares of Dutch delivery group TNT Express edged down on January 14, after the United Parcel Service (UPS) scrapped its plans to acquire the company. At the beginning of Monday’s trading session, the shares of TNT Express lost about 50%; eventually, one share came to cost 4.2 euros. Previously, the securities of TNT Express closed at 8.24 euros per share.
Shortly after the tumble, the price of the shares started trending up slowly. The cost of one share moved to 4.8 euros in the first two hours and a half. As compared to the preceding session, the securities sank 41.8%.
Earlier, the European Commission said it was going to block the takeover deal. Then, UPS decided to abandon the plan to acquire TNT Express and agreed to pay the latter a termination fee of 200 million euros. There is no official data revealing the reasons why the European Commission objected acquisition of TNT Express by UPS. However, the EU's antitrust regulatory bodies explicitly insisted that the takeover deal might impede competition in Europe’s courier sector.
It was back in March 2012 when UPS unveiled its intention to take TNT Express over for 5.16 billion euros. The UPS-TNT merger had been supposed to create a global logistics provider. UPS had been in talks with TNT Express over the merger for several years. It should be mentioned that during the last twelve years UPS has taken over about 30 delivery companies.
TNT Express is now ranked fourth among the world's largest express delivery companies. At the end of 2011, TNT Express reported a total loss of 270 million euros. The company’s stock was traded at 5-7 euros per share within 2011, but the looming merger deal pushed it higher by 10 euros. UPS had planned to pay 9.5 euros for each share of TNT Express.