MOSCOW (Reuters) – PepsiCo is to pay $ 3.8 billion for a 66 percent stake in Wimm-Bill-Dann from a group of shareholders, in a deal it said gave the Russian juice and dairy producer an enterprise value of $ 5.4 billion.
PepsiCo will offer to buy the remaining shares following completion of its controlling stake, in a deal that will move the U.S. beverage company closer to building a $ 30 billion nutrition business by 2020.
The price of $ 33 per American depositary receipt represented a 32 percent premium to the 30-day average trading price of Wimm-Bill-Dann’s U.S.-listed shares.
The deal will see PepsiCo, which already owns Lebedyansky, overtake Coca-Cola Co as Russia’s biggest juice maker — the spot it lost earlier this year when its U.S. rival bought Nidan, Russia’s fourth-largest juice maker.
The deal will raise PepsiCo’s annual global revenues from nutritious and functional foods to nearly $ 13 billion from around $ 10 billion.
Wimm-Bill-Dann’s Moscow-listed shares soared 40 percent on news of the acquisition.
“This is an unprecedentedly high price for the Russian food market as the Russian consumer market as a whole. Wimm-Bill-Dann has been valued at a multiple of 18 times 2010 EBITDA, which suggests there is an enormous interest from western strategic investors,” Renaissance Capital analyst Natalya Zagvozdina said.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Additional reporting by Maria Plis; Editing by Dan Lalor)
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