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(Adds stock price performance, context)
The chairman and majority shareholder of Hong Kong-listed L’Occitane International 0973.HK will take the French skincare company private, valuing it at a maximum of HK$13.91 billion ($1.78 billion ), the company said Monday.
Shares of L’Occitane jumped 12.9% to HK$33.30, their highest level since January 2022, when the company resumed trading on Tuesday.
Reuters reported in early April that L’Occitane Chairman Reinold Geiger was in advanced talks with investors and lenders about the deal, with U.S. private equity giant Blackstone BX.N seeking to provide financing through loan to finance the operation.
As part of the deal, Austrian billionaire Geiger’s investment holding company, L’Occitane Groupe, in Luxembourg, will pay HK$34 for each share not yet held, representing a 30.8% premium over the stock last closed at HK$26 on February 5.
L’Occitane Groupe owned 72.39% of the cosmetics company at the end of March.
The investment holding company has no plans to raise the offer price for the deal, which comes months after Geiger abandoned an attempt to buy the company.
Geiger plans to finance part of the transaction using external credit facilities acquired from affiliates of Blackstone and Goldman Sachs Group. A source told Reuters on Monday that investment firms would provide 1.55 billion euros in financing to support the buyout.
Shares of L’Occitane International were suspended on April 9.
JP Morgan will be the advisory bank for L’Occitane Groupe.
Last September, Mr. Geiger decided not to reach a deal to take the company private, which led to a drop in shares.
The company said in August that if a transaction were to take place, the potential offer price would not be less than HK$26.00 per share.
L’Occitane was listed in Hong Kong in 2010 and was one of the first Western companies to sell its primary shares in the Asian financial hub at the time.
The L’Occitane brand was born from a local essential oil business in Provence (France) and today offers products such as soaps, creams and perfumes.
L’Occitane Groupe, headquartered in Luxembourg, has 8 brands and more than 3,000 points of sale and 1,300 own stores in 90 countries, as indicated on its website.
($1 = 7.8265 Hong Kong dollars)