PositiveID Corporation on Thursday offered to buy South St. Paul-based Digital Angel Corporation for 60 cents per outstanding share, or about $17 million.

The offer from PositiveID Corporation-a Florida-based company that provides identification technologies and tools to protect consumers and businesses-represents a 60 percent premium to Digital Angel's average closing price for the last 20 trading days.

On Friday, Digital Angel released a statement confirming the offer and said that the company's board will review the terms of the proposal this month at its next regularly scheduled meeting.

In response, PositiveID Corporation released a statement urging Digital Angel's board to schedule a special meeting to consider the proposal.

“We are disappointed that [Digital Angel] does not appear to be considering our offer with the urgency we believe it merits,” Scott R. Silverman, PositiveID's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “We believe that the combination of the two companies is compelling, and that a meeting of the board on an accelerated basis is an appropriate measure for the [company] to take in order to provide a timely reply to PositiveID and the stockholders of both companies.”

Last month, Digital Angel announced that its Destron Fearing HD.Tag identification technology has received approval from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Shares of Digital Angel's stock were down more than 5 percent to 47 cents in Friday afternoon trading.

Digital Angel is among Minnesota's largest public companies based on revenue. The company reported $49.5 million in revenue in 2009.

-Melissa Loth