Kofola CeskoSlovensko, a central European soft-drink maker, seeks to raise as much as 1.41 billion koruna ($55.7 million) in a share sale in Prague and Warsaw.
The company will offer 275,000 new shares and as many as 1,900,000 existing shares held by private equity fund Enterprise Investors for between 500 koruna and 650 koruna per share, Chief Financial Officer Daniel Burys told reporters in Prague on Friday. The shares are set to start trading in Prague on 2 December and in Warsaw around 9 December, he said.
The beverage maker, whose brands include the Semtex energy drink, wants to expand through buying rivals in the region, particularly in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and in the Balkans, Burys said. The group, which bought Slovenian mineral water brand Radenska in 2014, is planning more acquisitions as soon as next year, he said.
“We prefer to expand on these relatively small markets,” Burys said. “It’s better to be a big player on a small market than a small player on a big one.”
Chief Executive Officer Jannis Samaras, who owns a majority stake in the company, said he doesn’t plan to sell any shares at the moment. The company will continue to pay about a third of its profit in dividend, he said.
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