The management of McGregor Fashion Group, the Dutch company that owns Gaastra Sportswear, is mulling a tender offer that would delist the group from the Euronext stock exchange, while investing more forcefully in international expansion. The bid has been supported by McGregor’s board, and it is likely to be launched formally after a due diligence report at the end of next month. The offer is to be tabled by a consortium composed of McGregor’s management and Boekhoorn M&A, an investment fund controlled by Marcel Boekhoorn, a Dutch investor. Two managers involved are Jeroen Schothorst, the company’s general manager, and Ben Kolff, sales manager.
The consortium is offering to buy out McGregor at 31 euros per ordinary share, which includes the dividend for the financial year ending on July 31, 2006. This would place the company’s worth at about €129 million. The price represents a premium of 16.3 percent compared with the closing price on Jan. 12, when news of an impending offer broke, and a premium of 56.6 percent compared with the share’s average price over the last 12 months. The buyers have already obtained commitments from shareholders representing about 80 percent of McGregor’s capital.
The management says the proposed delisting should allow more long-term investments in international growth. They argue that the stock market listing and low volumes of trading in McGregor shares prevented them from raising money for initiatives which were unlikely to pay off financially before several years.
Along with the McGregor brand of clothing, one major asset of the company is Gaastra, the Dutch brand of sailing apparel. McGregor has invested over the last years to turn Gaastra into a lifestyle brand, selling in a much wider range of sports and fashion stores. McGregor’s profits reached €4.9 million on sales of €86 million for the last financial year, a small drop from the previous year, but they are expected to rise significantly in 2006, partly due to the takeover of a retail chain selling men’s apparel in the Netherlands.
Company executives stress that the planned bid is entirely unrelated with Schothorst’s indictment for alleged insider trading last June. Boekhoorn has been investing in Dutch companies for several years, and he made headlines last October when he sold his stake in Telfort, a telecom company, for about €1 billion.
