Germany not organizing consortium for alternative Kuka offer: ministry

A Kuka technician programs a robot arm of German industrial robot maker Kuka at the company’s stand during the Hannover Fair in Hanover, Germany, April 25, 2016.

Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel is not trying to organize an alternative offer for Kuka after Chinese home appliance maker Midea Group Co Ltd made a 4.5 billion euro (3.5 billion pounds) bid for the German industrial robot maker, a ministry spokesman said on Friday.

“The minister is not organizing a consortium for an alternative offer in the Kuka case,” spokesman Andreas Audretsch told a regular news conference.

The spokesman said that Gabriel would appreciate a German or European bid, but he added: “To make this clear: Such processes are corporate decisions and the government is not interfering.”

On Wednesday, Gabriel said there were efforts to formulate an alternative offer, but it was unclear whether those efforts would materializes into a counter bid.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Noah Barkin)