Status Report: Trane - Ingersoll-Rand

Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited (IR) has filed the first amended proxy statement for its proposed purchase of Trane Inc. (TT) with the SEC.

Trans shareholder meeting details are not included in the revised document.

The expected failure to obtain a proxy review waiver for this deal naturally translate into a closing delay well into May, or perhaps even June of this year. It will be pointed out again (as noted in several other pending transactions) that the SEC appears to be now taking a much closer look at merger proxies than it has in the last few years. So far, there have been no extremely lengthy proxy reviews from this trend, but this will likely change in the very near future. This deal is certainly a candidate for an SEC review in excess of 45 days, so the Trane shareholder meeting and close, again, could easily slip past next month.

With respect to the last remaining competition-related regulatory approval, the EU has not published its decision in this case as of this entry. The review deadline was Thursday and it remains expected that approval will be granted without review extension.

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