GKN : rejects Melrose's $10.2 billion offer

(Reuters) - British engineering company GKN (>> GKN) on Wednesday rejected a 7.4 billion pound cash-and-stock takeover offer from turnaround specialists Melrose (>> Melrose Industries).

GKN said the terms of the offer are effectively unchanged from Melrose's Jan. 8 unsolicited proposal which it "unanimously rejected because it fundamentally undervalued GKN".

"We believe GKN's current owners should retain all the benefits of the clear upside potential in GKN, rather than handing almost half of this upside to Melrose and its shareholders," GKN CEO Anne Stevens said.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely)