CAMDEN, N.J. -- Campbell Soup Co. said Thursday it will extend to Jan. 28 its tender offer for shares of Arnotts Ltd., Australia's leading cookie and cracker manufacturer.
The offer had been scheduled to expire Jan. 12.
Campbell is trying to obtain a 50.1 percent stake in the company, for which it has offered $6.07 a share ($8.80 Australian). Campbell already owns 33 percent of Arnott's.
But its efforts to acquired a majority stake faltered when Arnott's went to the Supreme Court of New South Wales about the terms of a 1985 letter of intent with Campbell that limited the soup company's control.
The Supreme Court ruled the agreement did not apply to Campbell's current offer.
Campbell had been invited in 1985 to take a position in the company to prevent a takeover by the late Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond.
Campbell said the court's approval cleared the last technical hurdle in its takeover bid for the Australian company.
Campbell, the largest U.S. soup maker and a major producer of frozen, canned and baked foods, owns the Pepperidge Farm line of cookies in the United States and the Delocke line in Europe.
The company said its offer price of $8.80 (Australian) remains in effect as 'full and fair' and that its representatives will meet immediately with Arnotts Australian institutional shareholders.
Leonard F. Griehs, a Campbell spokesman, said 'we want to own a majority of the company to help them move into Asia, which we consider a potentially important market,' Greihs said.
'We have a strategy to grow the biscuit industry,' said Griehs.
Campbell has said it has no interest in selling its stake in Arnott's.
