Coca-Cola Amatil Receives A$9.28 Bln Proposal From Coca-Cola European Partners

(RTTNews) - Coca-Cola Amatil Limited (CCL.AX) said that it has received a non-binding indicative proposal of A$12.75 cash per share from Coca-Cola European Partners plc (CCE) for the acquisition of all of the issued shares held by independent shareholders of Coca-Cola Amatil.

The proposal implies an equity value on a 100% fully diluted basis of about A$9.28 billion and an enterprise value of A$10.87 billion and represents a premium of 23% to the one week volume weighted average price.

Coca-Cola Amatil has advised the independent shareholders to take no action in response to the proposal at this stage.

In a separate press release, Coca-Cola European Partner confirmed that it has made a non-binding offer to acquire 69.2% of the entire existing issued share capital of Coca-Cola Amatil, which is held by shareholders other than the Coca-Cola Company (KO).

Coca-Cola European Partner has also proposed to acquire Coca-Cola co.'s 30.8% interest in Coca-Cola Amatil.

As per the terms of the proposal, Coca-Cola Amatil's independent shareholders would receive A$12.75 per share in cash. Coca-Cola Company would receive A$9.57 per share in cash for part of their shareholding, which comprises 10.8% of Coca-Cola Amatil's shares. Coca-Cola European Partners said it will work with Coca-Cola co. to acquire all of KO's remaining 20% shareholding in Coca-Cola Amatil.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola Amatil said that trading conditions continued to improve in the third quarter of the 2020 financial year with group trading revenue down 4.2% in the third-quarter of 2020 compared to the prior year.

Group Volume was down 5.4% on the third-quarter of 2019, again an improvement on the 11.6% decline reported at the first-half of 2020 and a significant improvement on the April decline of 33%.

Coca-Cola Amatil said that it is encouraged by the recovery indicators that have emerged since July including the strong performances in Western Australia and New Zealand and the recent recovery in OTG channels. It anticipates those trends will be replicated across its major markets as COVID-19 restrictions ease. As a result, the company is well placed to capitalize on the all-important the fourth-quarter Christmas trading period.