Refresco Group NV rejected a takeover bid from French private-equity firm PAI Partners SAS that valued the Dutch soft-drink bottler at €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion).
Refresco received the offer on 6 April, and its board decided that the proposed terms didn’t merit further investigation, the company said in a recent statement in response to a Bloomberg News report. PAI is weighing a bid for the company to take it private, and other buyout firms may also be interested, people familiar with the matter said.
No final agreements have been reached, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Refresco, which listed in 2015, jumped 10% at 12.21 p.m. in Amsterdam, its biggest-ever gain. That gave the Rotterdam-based company a market value of €1.35 billion. A representative for PAI declined to comment on the firm’s interest in Refresco.
Private-equity firms are increasingly looking for opportunities to take publicly traded companies private, or to carve out units from larger businesses as a way of investing mounting piles of cash. German drug-maker Stada Arzneimittel AG recently agreed to sell itself to Bain Capital and Cinven for €5.3 billion, after a long-fought takeover contest with other buyout firms.
Founded in 1999 and led by chief executive officer Hans Roelofs, Refresco operates 29 manufacturing facilities in the US and Europe, according to its website. The company reported a net profit of €81.5 million and revenue of €2.1 billion in 2016.
[Picture: Refresco/Richard Sinon]
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