Tokyo, Japan and Amsterdam, The Netherlands—25 January 2012—Canon Inc. ("Canon") hereby announces that the writ of summons commencing formal statutory buyout proceedings under Dutch law ("squeeze out procedure") to acquire the remaining shares in Océ N.V. ("Océ") was issued by Canon Finance Netherlands B.V., a Canon wholly owned subsidiary in the Netherlands, on 24 January 2012.
In the squeeze out procedure Canon offers a purchase price of € 9.75 per ordinary share in the capital of Océ. This is equal to the purchase price Canon paid for the ordinary shares in Océ that it acquired from Orbis Funds ("Orbis"), a transaction that was announced in a press release on 22 December 2011.
The acquisition of Océ shares from Orbis increased Canon's ownership in Océ to 98.83 percent of the entire issued share capital (including 2.38 percent treasury shares held by Océ and including cumulative preference shares). This percentage allows Océ to delist from NYSE Euronext Amsterdam and Canon to initiate the squeeze out procedure. On 16 January 2012 Océ announced the delisting as per 14 February 2012.
Pursuant to Dutch law Canon Finance Netherlands B.V. initiated the squeeze out procedure by the formal service of the writ of summons against the remaining minority shareholders. Because the shares of Océ are traded in book-entry form through the systems of Euroclear Nederland, the minority shareholders are unknown to Canon. As a consequence thereof the service of the writ of summons will in due course also be announced in a Dutch daily newspaper. The proceedings will be instituted by the Enterprise Section of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal.
