Petaling Jaya, 12 December 2017,
OldTown Bhd, the owner of the Old Town White Coffee franchise, is on the verge of being taken over by a Dutch company that specialises in the beverage industry worldwide.
Following an offer, valued at RM1.47 billion, from Jacobs Douwe Egberts Holdings Asia NL BV (JDE), OldTown released a statement saying that the majority shareholders, owning 51% of the public-listed company, had given their undertaking “to accept the offer”.
JDE made an offer of RM3.18 per share for OldTown, which was a premium of RM0.30 over the company’s share price of RM2.88 as at Dec 7.
“The offeror (JDE) intends to make the offer with a view to delisting and privatising OldTown.
“Based on the outstanding 463.239 million shares as at Dec 11 and the offer price of RM3.18 per OldTown share, the total outlay for the offer will be RM1.473bil,” CIMB Investment Bank, which is acting for JDE, said in a statement.
JDE is a privately-owned Dutch company that owns a number of beverage brands. It was formed in 2015 following the merger of the coffee division of Mondelez International with Douwe Egberts.
The JDE website states that the company is owned by Acorn Holdings BV, which holds the majority share, in partnership with Mondelez International Inc, who is the minority shareholder.
JDE is described as “a global coffee & tea company, serving consumers in more than 120 countries”.
According to CIMB Investment Bank, as a commitment to the takeover offer, JDE has already deposited US$370 million (RM1.51 billion) into an escrow account with a bank in Singapore.
“The escrow fund cannot be released from the account other than for the permitted purposes of paying for the takeover of OldTown,” the bank said in its statement.
Aside from the restaurant franchise, OldTown main business activities are the production, marketing and sales of coffee and other beverages, including instant coffee mix, instant milk tea mix, instant chocolate mix and roasted coffee powder.
The company was established in 1999 and was listed on Bursa Malaysia in 2011.
Read more at : http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2017/12/12/oldtown-receives-rm1-47b-takeover-bid-from-dutch-company/
