Coca-Cola European Partners offers to buy Coca-Cola Amatil for A $ 9.28 billion

It appears that Coca-Cola owner Amatil New Zealand will be bought by Coca-Cola’s European distributors in a deal worth nearly $ 10 billion.

Coca-Cola European Partners has offered to buy Coca-Cola Amatil, listed on ASX, which owns the New Zealand business, for AU $ 12.75 per share, valuing the deal at AU $ 9.28 billion (9 , 9 billion dollars).

The offer is a 19 percent premium over where the Coca-Cola Amatil shares were last traded.

In a statement to ASX, Coca-Cola Amatil said that it had received the non-binding indicative proposal for all shares held by independent Amatil shareholders pursuant to an agreement scheme.

Coca-Cola European Partners will also sign a separate agreement to purchase Amatil shares indirectly held by Coca-Cola Company, which has a 31 percent stake on terms less favorable than those offered to other shareholders, the statement said.

According to Bloomberg, the cash offer would give Coca-Cola European Partners an even greater international presence and immediate scale in the southern hemisphere.

Soda bottlers have been under pressure to consolidate amid slowing sales caused in part by the coronavirus pandemic and by consumers turning away from sugary drinks.

Coca-Cola European Partners is the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler by revenue, with 48 production sites in Germany, Spain, Great Britain and elsewhere, according to a fact sheet on its website.

Coca-Cola Amatil is a dominant player in the Asia Pacific region, with 32 production plants in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, according to its website.

Ilana Atlas, president of Amatil, said that the related party committee, which is made up of independent non-executive directors of Amatil, had considered the proposal and had “unanimously determined that, based on the current price and conditions of the proposal “, it was in the best interests of the independent shareholders to allow Coca-Cola European Partners to conduct due diligence and further negotiate the transaction documentation to determine whether a binding proposal can be made to the independent shareholders.

If due diligence was complete and other conditions were met and an acceptable scheme implementation deed was negotiated, Amatil’s related party committee and the group’s CEO, Alison Watkins, intended to recommend the scheme to shareholders.