Engineers Weir Group has been rebuffed in a bid to buy Finnish oil and gas rival Metso.
The Scots firm had launched a multi-billion pound takeover bid for Metso, which produces technology and automation services to mining, oil and gas firms, earlier this month.
But today the Helsinki-listed company said it had turned down Weir Group’s approach, which was thought to be worth around £3billion.
“The board of directors of Metso has carefully evaluated the proposal received from Weir and has come to the unanimous conclusion that this proposal is not in the best interest of Metso shareholders,” the firm said in a statement.
“The Metso board remains extremely positive and confident in Metso’s standalone growth and value creation prospects by pursuing its current strategy.
“As a consequence, the Board has rejected Weir’s proposal and sees no reason to commence discussions regarding a potential combination.”
Glasgow-based Weir, which employs more than 15,000 staff in 70 countries, had proposed an all-share deal in a bid to create a major player in the engineering sector for oil, gas and mining.
It had looked to list the merged outfit on both London and Helsinki’s stock exchanges, but Finnish state investment fund Solidium had opposed the takeover bid from the start.
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