Consulting employees at Charter International plc

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Format	Title	File size
	Consulting employees at Charter International plc Published 31 Jan 2012	File size: 670 KB

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Charter International plc is the owner of two international engineering businesses and has a total of 12,500 employees spread across 122 countries. Its CEO was replaced in July 2011 after a profit warning and the company received two takeover offers.

This case study looks at how recent changes to the rules about takeovers, require the company that is being taken over to obtain the opinion of its employee representatives on the effects of the offer on employment, and append the opinion to a circular to its  shareholders.

Charter International was the first company required to consult its employees under the new rules. In the absence of any detailed guidance in the rules or from the Panel, Charter had to design its own consultation mechanism. This presented obvious challenges, given its widespread geographical locations and the short timescale within which consultation had to be completed.

A £1.5 billion offer from US-based Colfax was subsequently recommended by the Charter International board and accepted by shareholders. The change of control was completed on 13 January 2012.