The battle for US fruit distributor Chiquita has taken another twist after the Brazilian consortium fighting against the company’s proposed merger with Irish contemporary Fyffes upped its bid.
Brazilian juice maker Cutrale and investment firm Safra last night raised their offer from $13 per Chiquita share to $14 a share, valuing the company at $658m.
Chiquita and Irish fruit importer Fyffes agreed to merge back in April, but Cutrale-Safra threated to derail the deal with its bid in August.
Cutrale-Safra said in a statement: “Unlike the proposed combination with Fyffes, the superior Cutrale-Safra offer provides Chiquita shareholders complete certainty with respect to the value of their investment.”
Chiquita said it would carefully consider the new offer. The company’s shareholders are due to meet to vote on the Fyffes merger plan on 24 October, having already postponed the meeting from September to extract the best possible offer from the various suitors.
Last month Chiquita and Fyffes agreed to revise the terms of their merger to give Chiquita shareholders 59.6% of ChiquitaFyffes, an increase from 50.7% under the previous agreement.
The two companies received regulatory approval from the EU for their merger earlier this month.
Responding to the increased bid, David McCann, Fyffes chairman, said: “The agreed merger between Chiquita and Fyffes remains superior to today’s unsolicited takeover offer from Cutrale-Safra.
“As Chiquita illustrated in its most recent filing on 14 October, the implied present value of the ChiquitaFyffes deal is in a range of $15.46 - $20.01 per share. The combination provides for substantial upside for all shareholders who will benefit from the combined company’s equity growth prospects and $60m in annualised synergies already identified and achievable by 2016. Comparatively, a deal with Cutrale-Safra undervalues the company’s potential and represents only a finite value, putting a hard cap to upside for Chiquita shareholders.”
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