Nov 23 2004
The Cooper Companies, Inc. and Ocular Sciences, Inc. announced today that they have each obtained the required stockholder approvals for their proposed merger.
Cooper said that at a special meeting today in New York, its stockholders approved the issuance of Cooper's common stock in connection with the proposed merger. Ocular said that at a special meeting in Concord, California, its stockholders approved and adopted the merger agreement and approved the merger.
Upon the completion of the merger, Ocular stockholders will receive 0.3879 of a share of Cooper commons stock and $22.00 in cash for each share of Ocular common stock that they own. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of Cooper's 2005 fiscal year, which began on November 1, 2004. However, completion of the merger remains subject to anti-trust clearance by the U. S. Federal Trade Commission.
The Cooper Companies' CooperVision unit, the world's fourth largest contact lens manufacturer, is a leading global supplier of specialty contact lenses. Ocular Sciences, the world's fifth largest contact lens manufacturer, supplies primarily spherical and daily disposable lenses. If the merger is completed as expected, CooperVision, when combined with Ocular, would become the world's third largest contact lens company.
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