Ahold and Delhaize Confirm to Merge, Bouygues Rejects Altice Offe

Nigel Thomas
24 Jun, 2015
New York City

Ahold and the Belgium-based Delhaize agreed to merge and Ahold terminated its stock buyback program and announced

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – Ahold and the Belgium-based Delhaize agreed to merge and Ahold terminated its stock buyback program and announced €1 billion capital return program to shareholders. Bouygues rejected unsolicited proposal of €10 billion for telecom unit. ITV agreed to by 75% stake in Boom Supervisory.[/R]

European markets struggled after Greece and international lenders failed to find a common ground and talks collapsed at the end of 2-day talks.

In London trading, FTSE 100 index edged up 6.65 to 6,842.03 and in Frankfurt the DAX index fell 0.9% or 106.41 to 11,436.63.

In Paris, CAC 40 index slipped 0.5% or 22.71 to 5,034.97.

Koninklijke Ahold N.V slipped 2.1% to €18.56 after the Netherlands-based retail group and the Belgium-based food retailer Delhaize Group SA agreed to merge to form a new entity Ahold Delhaizee.

Ahold Delhaizee, the merged new entity will have more than 6,500 stores with 375,000 associates and serve 50 million customers a week in the U.S. and Europe and is estimated to generate annual sales of about €54 billion.

The combined company will be valued at €26.07 billion or $29.11 billion.

Under the terms, Delhaize investors will receive 4.75 Ahold shares per Delhaize share and will own 39% of the combined company’s equity and the shareholders of Ahold will hold the remaining 61%.

Ahold said it will terminate its share buyback program and return €1 billion to investors through a capital return and reverse stock split before the completion of transaction.

Mats Jansson chairman of Delhaize will be the chairman and Dick Boer chief executive officer of Ahold will become as chief executive officer of the merged company.

The deal is expected to be completed by mid-2016.

Bouygues SA plunged 8.4% to €34.84 after the France-based communications and media group said its board of directors unanimously decided not to pursue the “unsolicited” proposal from European telecom company Altice SA to acquire rival Bouygues Telecom for about €10 billion or $11.4 billion.

ITV Plc rose 0.1% to 273.58 pence after the U.K.-based broadcasting company agreed to acquire 75% stake in Boom Supervisory Limited the holding company of Twofour Group for about £55 million.

The company will have the right to acquire the remaining 25% between 2017 and 2021.

The Sage Group Plc decreased 4.1% to 526.50 pence after the U.K.-based software company forecasted annual revenue for the fiscal 2015 to increase 6% and operating profit margin to soar 28%.