Joh. A. Benckiser has quite the caffeine craving, it seems.
The German consumer products conglomerate has offered to buy the 85 percent of D.E. Master Blenders 1753, a European coffee company, that it doesn’t already own, D.E. Master Blenders disclosed on Thursday.
Benckiser has offered 12.75 euros a share, valuing the target at close to $9.8 billion. The bid is about 33 percent higher than D.E. Master Blenders’ closing price on Wednesday.
If a deal is struck, it would be the third coffee takeover that Benckiser will have announced in 12 months. Within the span of half a year, the German company announced plans to spend $1.3 billion buying Peet’s Coffee & Tea and the Caribou Coffee Company, forming the beginning of a nascent java empire.
But while Peet’s and Caribou primarily run coffee shops, D.E. Master Blenders focuses on products for homes. Spun off from Sara Lee last summer, the company makes coffee pods for Nespresso machines and owns the Douwe Egberts and Pickwick brands.
Beyond coffee, Benckiser has shown an enormous appetite for mergers. An investment vehicle for the wealthy Reimann family of Germany, the conglomerate is run by three veteran consumer products executives with a taste for wheeling and dealing. Benckiser already owns a huge swath of well-known brands, including Jimmy Choo shoes and Sally Hansen nail polish.
Last year, the company made its biggest takeover bid to date, offering $10.7 billion for Avon Products Inc. through its Coty cosmetics subsidiary. Avon successfully fended off the hostile takeover, despite Coty’s partnering with Warren E. Buffett.
