Business news :Exceed Company Hires Counsel to Evaluate CEO's Buyout Offer

Exceed Company Ltd, one of mainland China’s more prominent domestic sporting goods brands, has hired financial counsel to study a management buyout proposal submitted by its chairman and CEO in mid-August.

The company, whose stock trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol EDS, announced Tuesday that a special committee of its board of directors retained Houlihan Lokey, Inc. as its financial advisor, K&L Gates LLP as its U.S. legal counsel and Walkers Global as its BVI legal counsel to examine the proposal.

Exceed's Special Committee was formed to consider a non-binding proposal submitted in August by the company's Chairman and CEO Shuipan Lin and a consortium of his affiliates that already control 66.5 percent of the company's stock and want to acquire the rest to take the company private.

The Consortium, which includes Tiancheng Int'l Investment Group Limited, HK Haima Group Limited, Wisetech Holdings Limited, Windtech Holdings Limited and RichWise International Investment Group Limited, have offered to buy those shares in a private transaction at $1.72 per ordinary share in cash, which represented a premium of 15 percent to the closing price of the ordinary shares of the company at the time of the offer Aug. 16, 2013. As of Aug. 17, the offer represented a premium of 38 percent to the average closing price of the ordinary shares of the company during the prior 30 trading days, and a premium of 42 percent to the average closing price of the ordinary shares of the company during the last 60 trading days. On Tuesday, Exceed's shares closed at $1.53 a share.

While Exceed’s Special Committee is evaluating the proposal, it said Tuesday that there can be no assurance that any definitive offer will be made, that any agreement will be executed or that the proposal or any other transaction will be approved or consummated.

About Exceed : 

Exceed Company Ltd. designs, develops and engages in wholesale of footwear, apparel and accessories under its own brand, Xidelong, in China. Since it began operations in 2002, Exceed has targeted its growth on the consumer markets in second and third-tier cities in China. Exceed has three principal categories of products: (i) footwear, which comprises running, leisure, basketball, skateboarding and canvas footwear, (ii) apparel, which mainly comprises sports tops, pants, jackets, track suits and coats, and (iii) accessories, which mainly comprise bags, socks, hats and caps.

By press release through SportsOneSource