Pivovary Lobkowicz Group surged to a record after the sale of a majority stake in the Czech brewer boosted prospects for other shareholders to sell their holdings for more than the current market price.
The stock rose 2.3 per cent to 204.50 koruna in Prague today after a unit of CEFC China Energy bought a 79.4 per cent stake at 208 koruna per share. The volume surged to more than triple the three-month daily average.
Lapasan, a company 70 per cent owned by CEFC, is obliged to make a buyout offer to other shareholders within 30 days, the brewer said in a regulatory statement today. The shares are up 18 per cent this year, compared with a 2.6 per cent advance in the period for the Stoxx 600 Food and Beverage Index.
"We assume the price of the mandatory offer should be the same as that of the takeover," Petr Bartek, an equity analyst at the Prague-based unit of Erste Group Bank, said by e-mail. "We would recommend accepting such an offer” because “the takeover value carries a significant premium over our target price" of 191 koruna, he said.
J&T investment group owns 20 per cent of Lapasan, while Lobkowicz’s chief executive officer, Zdenek Radil, holds the remaining 10 per cent.
CEFC’s investment will help increase sales at home and abroad, Hospodarske Noviny on Monday cited Radil as saying. He told the newspaper that while he prefers to keep the only publicly traded Czech brewer on the stock exchange, the decision will partly depend on the result of the buyout.
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