CLOPPENBURG, Germany (BRAIN) — Pon Holding on Tuesday said it would pay the last shareholders of Derby Cycle 31.56 euros per share to buy out the remaining 5 percent interest in the company.
Once the transaction, called a squeeze out, goes through, Pon will have the green light to delist Derby from several European stock exchanges, returning it to private status less than two years after the company first went public.
The per share cost to Pon was negotiated based on an updated business plan for Derby that pinpointed EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) margin at 6 percent, below an earlier 7 to 8 percent forecast for the 2011/2012 fiscal year. The anticipated drop in margin is due to weak business in August and September, Derby Cycle said in a press release issued Tuesday.
Pon paid 28 euros per share when it last bought an additional 3 percent of Derby shares at the end of May. Pon initially purchased about 92 percent of Derby for around 195 million euros last September.
Derby Cycle ended trading Tuesday at 32.7 euros per share. The issue price was 12.5 euros when Derby first went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Feb. 4, 2011. It’s also traded in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich, Stuttgart and London. Derby is Germany’s largest bike manufacturer and sold 482,000 bikes last year under its Focus, Kalkhoff, Rixe, Univega and Raleigh brands (Derby holds the license to sell Raleigh in Europe’s German speaking countries). Pon is a 7 billion euro Dutch trading company with a bike division that includes Derby, Cervélo and Gazelle.
