Carnival takeover offer rejected

Monday, Dec. 17, 2001 | 9:54 a.m.

LONDON -- P&O Princess Cruises rejected a takeover offer on Sunday from the Carnival Corp., which is seeking to break up a merger between P&O Princess and Royal Caribbean Cruises, Carnival's two largest rivals.

Carnival had offered 3.2 billion pounds ($4.6 billion) in cash and stock for P&O.

P&O Princess, based in London, said there was a greater chance that regulators would block the Carnival deal on antitrust grounds and that it was inferior financially to the Royal Caribbean offer. P&O Princess agreed last month to a $2.9 billion deal to merge with Royal Caribbean, which is based in Miami.

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