UPDATE 1-ASMI shares up after report bid being prepared
(Adds ASMI comment, updates shares)
AMSTERDAM, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Shares in Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASM International (ASMI.AS)(ASMI.O) rose almost 13 percent on Monday after a report that activist investors will launch a bid to take control of the firm.
Fursa Alternative Strategies, which holds a 10.3 percent stake in ASMI, wants to partly replace the company's board and has threatened to launch an exchange offer in which tendering shareholders take control through a vehicle.
Britain's Sunday Express newspaper reported that Fursa, together with British pension fund manager Hermes, will launch a bid within two weeks that will be worth more than 700 million euros ($1 billion).
Fursa and Hermes could not immediately be reached for comment, and ASMI Chief Financial Officer Naud van der Ven would not comment on the newspaper report.
Van der Ven told Reuters the company had not yet received a reply to its latest letter to Fursa, dated Feb. 1, in which it said it would study Fursa's proposal to shake up the board at a meeting on Feb. 6 and would reply by the end of the month.
Shares in the company were up 12.7 percent to 14.55 euros by 1421 GMT, returning to the price levels of early January. The shares are still down 32 percent from a 52-week high of 21.35 euros touched in October.
Fursa, formerly named Mellon HBV Alternative Strategies, has been spearheading efforts for two years to break the company up by disposing of ASMI's 53 percent stake in ASM Pacific Technology Ltd (0522.HK). (Reporting by Niclas Mika; Editing by Quentin Bryar)
