Unilever Offers to Buy Rest of Elais
The public offer is being made through the Greek subsidiary Unilever Hellas at a price of € 24.50 per share. Unilever already owns 67% of the 13.526.100 shares of Elais-Unilever.
06/09/06 Unilever has announced a voluntary public offer for the outstanding shares of Elais-Unilever that are listed and traded on the Athens stock exchange (ATHEX).
The public offer is being made through the Greek subsidiary Unilever Hellas at a price of € 24.50 per share. Unilever already owns 67% of the 13.526.100 shares of Elais-Unilever. The Anglo-Dutch consumer products group is valuing the Greek food company at 331.4 million euros ($424.7 million).
The intended acquisition of the outstanding shares of Elais-Unilever and the planned subsequent delisting from the Athens stock exchange is in line with the 'One Unilever' strategy.
The move comes less than a week after Unilever agreed to sell the bulk of its underperforming frozen foods business for 1.725 billion euros to a private equity.
Unilever is currently looking to raise its annual underlying sales in the medium term by around 2 to 4 percent, and then accelerate this to 3 to 5 percent growth by 2010.
Its second-quarter sales rose 3.9 percent to give a 3.4 percent rise in the first half of 2006. The "One Unilever" strategy is aimed at eradicating duplication and is expected to give cost savings of around 1 billion euros by the end of 2007.
