Autogrill shares soar on M&A speculation following reorganisation announcement

autogrill_logo_330ITALY/INTERNATIONAL. Autogrill’s share price soared to a record high today as investors speculated about possible merger and acquisition activity after the company announced plans to separate its Italian food & beverage business.

The Italian company, parent of HMSHost and HMSHost International, said it had resolved to start a corporate reorganisation project which would see it separate its “Italian food & beverage operating activities, together with the coordination and service activities in favour of the directly controlled European companies, from the direction and management activities carried out by the holding company”.

Shares in the company surged as much as +8% on the news, reaching €10.16, as shown in the table below.

autogrill share price
Autogrill’s share price soared today to reach a record high following the reorganisation announcement. Click on image to enlarge
Source: Reuters

Autogrill said the reorganisation was “aimed at reaching full flexibility and consistency in the organisational and corporate structure of the Group” and might entail “the contribution in kind of one or more businesses as a going concern/participations relating to the operating activities [of those today directly carried out by Autogrill] into one or more companies (already existing or newly formed) wholly controlled by the group holding company”.

One informed source in the investment community told The Moodie Davitt Report: “It seems to me that Autogrill are separating the European activities from the US business. Autogrill is a €430 million EBITDA business. The US accounts for circa 60% of that, Italy for 15%, International/Rest of Europe for the remainder.”

NOTE: The Moodie Davitt Report also publishes The Foodie Report, the world’s only media focused on airport (and other travel-related) food & beverage. The Foodie Report e-Newsletter is published every two weeks and The Foodie Report e-Zine every month.

Please send all news of food & beverage outlet openings, together with images, menus, video etc to Martin@MoodieDavittReport.com to ensure unrivalled global exposure.

The company also organises the annual Airport Food & Beverage (FAB) Conference & Awards.

FAB 2017 , hosted by Greater Toronto Airports Authority, will take place in Toronto on 21-23 June. For details, click here.

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