New Zealand: DB Breweries will disappear from the New Zealand Stock Exchange this week, after over 70 years as a public company. Parent company Asia Pacific Breweries has succeeded in its takeover bid and has just 1.92 % left to mop up. The offer closes today and the company will delist within days. Asia Pacific Breweries reached the 90 per cent ownership level, which clears the way for compulsory acquisition of remaining shares, last month. The deal will cost the Singapore-based company NZ$110 million for the 23.09 per cent of DB it did not already own. DB, one of the country's oldest listed companies, was valued at NZ$479 million in the NZ$9.50 a share takeover.
The brewer's story began in 1929 when William Coutts and his three sons established Otahuhu's Waitemata Brewery. Coutts later merged his business with that of Henry Kelliher, the owner of Auckland wholesale beer distributor Levers & Co.
In 1930 a prospectus was issued offering Ј75,000 worth of shares in Dominion Breweries.
This week's full takeover will close a intriguing chapter in the company's public history which began when Asia Pacific Breweries bought into DB Breweries from Brierleys in the early 1990s. Asia Pacific Breweries bid for control in 2000, and paid $2.80 a share to raise its stake from 58 per cent to almost 77 per cent.
08 September, 2004
