By Scott Murdoch and Poonam Behura
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australian packaging company Orora Ltd said on Tuesday it would buy French high-end glass bottle manufacturer Saverglass from private equity firm Carlyle Group for A$2.16 billion ($1.4 billion).
Orora shares remain suspended while it raises $A1.35 billion, in one of the largest Australian capital raisings in the past year.
Saverglass, which was purchased by Carlyle in 2016, manufactures premium glassware including for luxury spirits and wine makers like Grey Goose, Hennessy and Rhum Clement, according to an investor presentation.
Orora, which was spun out of Amcor a decade ago, will fund the purchase with a A$450 million institutional placement, a A$895 million 1-for-2.55 accelerated non-renounceable pro-rata entitlement offer, as well as A$875 million of debt financing, it said in a statement.
It will raise the funds at a price of $A2.70 a share, a 21.3% discount to its last closing price on Aug. 25 taking into account a 9 Australian cents per share final dividend.
Orora shares were placed on a trading halt on Aug. 28 and later went into voluntary suspension as the company had to delay an official buyout announcement.
Orora said Saverglass’s 1.29 billion euro ($1.39 billion)enterprise value represented a multiple of 7.7 times adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA for the 12 months ended June 30.
It expects the deal to be mid-single digit earnings per share accretive in the first full financial year of ownership.
($1 = 1.5477 Australian dollars)
($1 = 0.9270 euros)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Poonam Behura and Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Jamie Freed)
