Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever Plc (UL,ULVR.L,UN) Monday announced a voluntary open offer to increase its stake in its publicly listed Indian subsidiary Hindustan Unilever or HUL from 52.48 percent to up to 75 percent at a price of 600 Indian rupee per share.
The offer, payable in cash, represents a premium of 26 percent to HUL's last one month's average trading share price. The potential total value of the transaction at the offer price, assuming full acceptances, is around 292.2 billion rupee or 4.1 billion euros ($5.37 billion).
The offer is to acquire up to 487 million shares, representing 22.52 percent of the total outstanding shares of HUL. Securities regulations in India require a minimum public shareholding of 25 percent for a company to maintain a public listing in the country. The offer period is expected to begin in June.
Paul Polman, CEO, said: "This represents a further step in Unilever's strategy to invest in emerging markets...The long heritage and great brands of Hindustan Unilever, and the significant growth potential of a country with 1.3 billion people makes India a strategic long term priority for the business."
Last week the company said its underlying sales for the first quarter grew 4.9 percent from last year, with emerging markets growth of 10.4 percent.
Emerging markets saw double-digit quarterly growth despite continuing macro-economic headwinds, and represented over 57 percent of total turnover, while growth in developed markets remained sluggish.
ULVR.L closed on Monday at 2,805.00 pence, up 1.4 pence from the -previous close.
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