Household goods firm Unilever firmly rejects a surprise takeover bid from US food company Kraft Heinz saying it has no financial or strategic merit.
Household goods firm Unilever has firmly rejected a surprise takeover bid from US food company Kraft Heinz.
The Americans offered $143 billion (135 billion euros) for the Anglo-Dutch firm which is well known for brands such as Lipton tea and Dove soap.
Unilever is adamant and said it saw no reason to discuss a deal which it said had no financial or strategic merit.
Kraft said it would continue to pursue the bid.
A combination of the two multinationals would be the third-largest takeover in history and the biggest ever acquisition of a UK-based company.
Amid the Unilever/Kraft-Heinz talk, it’s worth noting how many brands they both currently hold! pic.twitter.com/t1q4RqVjq3
— RANsquawk (@RANsquawk) February 17, 2017
Unilever’s London-listed shares jumped 13.2 percent, hitting a record high and posting their best day in 30 years, and the broader household and personal goods sector rose 2.8 percent to a new high.
Analysts, however, were unconvinced.
“The approach by Kraft-Heinz is a total surprise. Unilever has double the revenue of Kraft for instance,” Jauke de Jong, analyst at AFS Group, said.
“Unilever would be on strong grounds to state that the offer materially undervalues the company, with recent large cap consumer staples transactions having been conducted on higher multiples,” analysts at Barclays said in a note.
Why the Unilever/Kraft Heinz deal makes sense strategically and its logic rests on cost savings https://t.co/B0Bzihl5Rf via
FTLex</a> <a href="https://t.co/ah51cx6kGv">pic.twitter.com/ah51cx6kGv</a></p>— Financial Times (FT) February 17, 2017
