By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor
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Friday 18th January 2002 |
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Danone's $2.35 per share bid ended at 5pm on Friday and the company announced later in the evening that it had managed to gain just under 90.7% of acceptances. It needed 90% to satisfy its takeover condition and can now move to compulsorily acquire the remaining shares.
The figure demonstrates a last minute rush of acceptances for the French bidder's offer. As of close of business on Thursday the company had just 68.5% of acceptances.
It also shows that tenacity paid off for the Danone, which first made the offer in October and extended the offer period three times but never increased the price.
However it was an updated valuation from Grant Samuel that ultimately gave Danone its prize. Although the initial appraisal report into Frucor valued the shares between $2.53 and $2.96 the appraisers later changed that to between $2.38 and $2.80.
Frucor's independent directors advised shareholders that while Danone's offer was still not fair, they recommended that with no competing bid in sight, the offer be accepted.
Danone Asia MD Simon Israel says he was extremely pleased with the late flood of acceptances Friday and thanked shareholders for accepting Danone's offer.
"I'm very happy there has been a successful outcome to what has been a protracted offer period. We respect the fact that the Independent Directors had to ascertain whether this offer was in the best interests of shareholders before recommending the offer.
"We believe that this outcome is in the best interest's of Frucor's long term future and look forward to working with the management of Frucor to realise the potential of the company's great brands on a global scale."
Some of New Zealand's best known beverage brands, including Just Juice and V energy drink, will now be fully foreign owned and Danone is yet to fully disclose which parts of the company it plans to hang on to.
Mr Israel has said that Danone is interested in the company for the potential of its innovative brands such as V and the flavoured water drink Mizone rather than as an Australasian focused business.
Frucor has had a brief and volatile run on the NZSE. Floating in June 2000 at $1.50 the company's stock began climbing not long after on hopes that V would prove a winner in the UK.
However it was punished by the market for not realising optimistic sales figures and concerns that the marketing costs needed to V an international best seller might be too high.
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