Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the world-leading specialist coffee maker, has made a bid to acquire the entirety of OldTown, a leading Malaysian manufacturer of coffee products and operator of coffee shops.
In a statement, OldTown said the proposed pre-conditional cash offer for all the issued ordinary shares of OldTown represented a total aggregate consideration of approximately 1.47 billion MYR ($360 million).
Founded in 1999, OldTown is involved n the manufacturing, marketing and sales of coffee and other beverages, including instant coffee mix, instant milk tea mix, instant chocolate mix and roasted coffee powder. It exports its products to 16 countries including the USA, Canada and the UK, as well as a number of Asian markets. As of 30th September 2017, OldTown also operated a total chain of 232 cafe outlets under the name OldTown White Coffee in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Myanmar.
Commenting on the deal, Jacobs Douwe Egberts CFO Fabien Simon said: “The team at OldTown has built an impressive footprint of FMCG and F&B business across the Asia Pacific region under the leadership of Group Managing Director, Mr. Lee Siew Heng. The OldTown team is focused on delivering premium, high-quality products to consumers and we see huge potential in the business. We are excited to work with the OldTown team to rapidly grow the business as part of the broader JDE platform”.
The bid for OldTown follows on from Jacobs Douwe Egberts’ acquisition of Singapore-based Super Group, which was announced in late 2016.
Source: OldTown