The board of debt of Spanish olive oil giant Deoleo gave it go ahead last week to a financial restructure offer from CVC Capital Partners (see a previous post of BeBeez).
The paneuropean private equity fund offered 0.38 euro per share that is a 439 million euros equity value, below an average of 490 millions in the last few days at the Madrid Stock Exchange, Deoleo is hungry for investment because it has about 506 million euros in debt and needs capital to grow via what it sees as a promising new range of products.
More in detail,CVC Capital Partners’ proposal comes in three steps. At first the fund will buy a 21.34 pct stake from some of the actual shareholders, mainly from Bankia and BMN, while other two banks (Caixabank and Kutxabank), that were on their way to sell too, changed their mind after moral suasion from the Government. Together with Unicaja and Dcoop’s stake, this means that a 30 pct stake of Deoleo shareholders’ capital would remain in Spanish hands.
The second step will be a recapitalization with 100 million euors of new equity injected by CVC that will reach then a 29.99% stake in Deoleo. The third step being a bid for full ownership. The deal would also see the fund refinance Deoleo’s debt.
CVC’s offer beated the ones from other private equity operators such as Carlyle, Rhone Capital, Pai Partners and Fondo Strategico Italiano via its IQ joint venture with Qatar Holding.
