Woodward denies WSJ's Boeing takeover talks tale
US-based Woodward has finally released a statement regarding the Wall Street Journal's "scoop" (Betaville seems to remember reading a very similar story on FT Alphaville the day before the venerable American paper published) about Boeing being in takeover talks to buy the aircraft parts maker. I have pasted the Woodward statement below:
Woodward, Inc. (NASDAQ:WWD). There are various articles today originating from a Wall Street Journal article stating, “Boeing Co. is in talks to buy aerospace parts maker Woodward Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.” This rumor is incorrect. Woodward is not in discussions with Boeing over a possible acquisition of Woodward, and will not provide any further comment on this story.
Rather than revel in a rival media organisations screw up I suspect what's happened here is Boeing and Woodward were in talks (the WSJ's article was written very carefully, saying the companies have held talks over the last few months) but the leak has effectively ended the discussions and triggered a sort of on the record non-denial, denial.
And this seems to be happening quite a lot recently - i.e. Ashland/Croda (first revealed by Betaville) Estee Lauder, Softbank/Temenos etc etc etc - and just goes to show how difficult M&A reporting is!
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