Lawsuit halts HanesBrands bid for Maidenform

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — The Shareholders Foundation has announced that an investor who currently holds Maidenform shares filed a lawsuit to halt the proposed takeover of Leap Wireless International by HanesBrands for $23.50 per share.

Investors who purchased shares of Maidenform Brands prior to July 24, 2013 and still hold them are being asked to contact the Shareholders Foundation at [email protected] or 858-779-1554.

The business deal between Maidenform and HanesBrands appears to make a lot of sense given their respective product offerings. However, the price HanesBrands offered and the Maidenform board accepted represented a 30% premium to the average closing price of Maidenform over the past 30 days. While those deal terms may have resonated with newer shareholders, longer-term holders are looking at a price that is several dollars below Maidenform’s 52-week high price of $26.37.

As such, the plaintiff alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed to stockholders by agreeing to sell the company at an unfair price via an unfair process. The plaintiff claims that the proposed transaction is patently opportunistic and does not reflect the intrinsic value of the company as a takeover candidate. Shares traded in April 2012 as high as $23.77 and in April 2011 as high as $31.66 per share. The plaintiff is also pointing to Maidenform Brands' financial performance, which went from $466.25 million for the 52-week-period ended Jan. 2, 2010 to $600.28 million for the 52-week-period ended Dec. 29, 2012.

The Shareholders Foundation is a professional portfolio legal monitoring and settlement claim filing service, which does research related to shareholder issues and informs investors of securities class actions, settlements, judgments and other legal-related news to the stock/financial market.