Leeds / UK. (div) Two months after agreeing a «merger-of-equals» with the Irish Greencore Group, Britain´s Northern Foods PLC succumbs to a much higher (0,73 GBP instead of 0,50 GBP per share) takeover bid from «2 Sisters Food Group» – subsidiary of Birmingham´s Boparan Holdings Limited. «The Boards of BH Acquisitions and Northern Foods are pleased to announce that they have reached an agreement …», 2 Sisters in West Bromwich, West Midlands, announced in a statement (PDF) on its web site.
BH Acquisitions is a subsidiary of Boparan Holdings and has been specifically incorporated for the purpose of making the Offer. According to the release, businessman Ranjit Singh Boparan agreed to buy Northern Foods, owner of Goodfella´s pizzas and Fox´s biscuits, for 342 million GBP in cash (401,45 million EUR). Boparan (44), a poultry magnate who supplies Tesco and KFC, wants to merge Northern Foods into his chicken processing company to create a food giant with two billion GBP annual sales. According to British newspapers, Boparan for the first time branched out from chicken when he bought a well known fish and chip restaurant chain last year. This move took him into the big league of food suppliers, they say.
Commenting the Offer, Anthony Hobson, Chairman of Northern Foods said: «This attractive cash offer provides shareholders with an immediate premium to the value of Northern Foods within Essenta Foods, the proposed merger with Greencore we announced in November 2010. The bid from Boparan is a compelling opportunity for our shareholders to realise a cash exit, and as such the Board of Northern Foods will be unanimously recommending that Northern Foods Shareholders accept Boparan´s offer». Now the Board has agreed to back Boparan´s offer and withdrew the agreed merger with Greencore.
