Heseltine’s warning over GKN takeover
LORD Heseltine yesterday urged ministers to block a hostile takeover of historic engineering firm GKN on national security grounds.
The Tory grandee, a former defence secretary, said “no other country of our sort” would allow such a deal to happen.
It came as Business Secretary Greg Clark shrugged off fears over speculators hoovering up shares in GKN to swing the takeover vote.
GKN manufactured cannonballs used at Waterloo and Spitfires during their 259-year history. They face being taken over by Melrose, a firm branded asset strippers, after shareholders backed an £8.1billion deal.
Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable said Melrose’s victory was only secured “through votes from short-term speculators” – a reference to the large number of hedge funds that make up GKN’s share register.
But Clark claimed investors who sold up in recent weeks had effectively decided not to back the company’s management.
He said public companies are “constantly under scrutiny” from alternative managements and no firms are “immune”.
The Business Secretary insisted Heseltine was “not right that other countries do not have a similar approach”.
He refused to be drawn on whether he thought there were national security concerns, saying he needed to act “objectively”.