Gelman Shareholders Approve Pall Merger

Gelman shareholders approve Pall merger

By MARY MORGAN

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Gelman Sciences Inc. shareholders have okayed its merger with Pall Corp., which was announced in October.

The $246 million deal was approved earlier this week by an overwhelming majority - 99.5 percent of the votes cast. The vote was taken in a special meeting held at Gel-man’s headquarters in Scio Township.

Gelman shareholders received 1.3047 shares of Pall stock for each share of Gelman stock. When the deal closed on Monday, Pall stock was trading at $29 on the New York Stock Exchange. There are roughly 8.5 million shares of Gelman stock outstanding.

“This is pretty big for us,” Ivo Marcich, Gelman’s business analysis manager, said Thursday.

The companies are working now to integrate their operations and get word of the merger out to their customers, he said. Details of that effort — including the impact on jobs in this area - are being hammered out as well.

Gelman President Kim Davis was appointed as senior vice president of East Hills, N.Y.-based Pall. Gelman founder Charles Gelman; stepped down from his job as chairman and chief executive officer. He will continue to work on research and development projects for the firm.

Gelman, which makes micro filtration products, will operate as a subsidiary of Pall. It will handle the! sale of both firms’ products to the laboratory, medical original-equipment-manufacturers and specialty-materials markets.

“(The addition of Gelman Sciences) extends Pali’s reach in the lucrative laboratory products markets,” Pall Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Krasnoff said in; a written press release.

“When this acquisition was first announced in October, we set a goal that it would be accretive to Pall shareholders after the first 12; months,” Krasnoff said. “We are well along with the plans to achieve this target.”

Pall, with annual sales of more; than $1 billion, manufactures disposable filters, membranes and other fluid clarification and separation! devices.

Its Website is http://www.pall.com