Coffee and tea giant Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) has issued a cash offer to take over OldTown, an Malaysia-based hot beverage manufacturer and café operator.
The offer is valued at around 1.47 billion ringitt, or €306 million. Shareholders holding around 51.45% of the company have already indicated that they intend to tender all of their shares in acceptance of the offer.
Café Operator
OldTown operates a total of 232 café outlets across Asia, including 189 in Malaysia, as well as producing instant coffee mix, instant milk tea mix, instant chocolate mix and roasted coffee powder, which it distributes to more than 17 markets.
Commenting on the bid by JDE, Lee Siew Heng, group managing director of OldTown, said, “We are deeply honoured that JDE recognises the powerful brand and platform that we have tirelessly built over the past 18 years. We strongly believe JDE is the ideal partner as we continue to serve best-in-class products to our customers.
“We look forward to drawing on JDE’s deep global expertise and building a highly successful partnership with them.”
Impressive Footprint
Fabien Simon, chief financial officer of JDE, said that OldTown has “built an impressive footprint of FMCG and F&B business across the Asia Pacific region under the leadership of group managing director, Lee Siew Heng. The OldTown team is focused on delivering premium, high-quality products to consumers and we see huge potential in the business. We are excited to work with the OldTown team to rapidly grow the business as part of the broader JDE platform.”
Evercore Asia, an independent investment banking advisory firm is acting as advisor on the deal.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
