Tornante's $385M Bid For Topps Wins Shareholder Approval
Former Disney Chair & CEO Michael Eisner yesterday won the "months long battle to take control” of baseball card maker Topps after a majority of shareholders approved the $385M takeover, according to Zachery Kouwe of the N.Y. POST. Eisner's Tornante Company and private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners maintained a $9.75 per-share offer for Topps “through months of pressure from two big shareholders” and a competing offer from Upper Deck. Sources said that “all but two of the top 10 shareholders” of Topps voted for the deal, which garnered about 53% of the vote. A notable exception to the merger was Crescendo Partners, an “activist hedge fund and vocal opponent” of the deal (N.Y. POST, 9/20). In Chicago, James Miller notes Upper Deck "muddied the waters" after the Tornante/Madison Dearborn buyout agreement was announced in March by launching their own $10.75-a-share tender offer. Topps "urged shareholders not to accept" that offer, citing the "likelihood that federal antitrust regulators wouldn't allow a combination of the two biggest players in the baseball card marketplace." The vote had been scheduled for August 28, but was pushed back following Upper Deck's withdrawal so that shareholders could have "more time to 'evaluate recent developments' before casting their vote" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 9/20)
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