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Dog food: Shining business in the corona pandemic
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
In the takeover battle for Zooplus, an interested party gave up.
The financial investor KKR ended the talks about an offer "in view of the latest developments," said the online pet supplies retailer on Wednesday in Munich.
The Zooplus price recently fell by 2.5 percent to 468 euros and thus moved away from its most recent record of 482.20 euros.
Late on Sunday evening, the financial investor Hellman & Friedman had increased its offer by almost a fifth to 460 euros per share in cash.
This should end "ongoing speculation" about other offers from third parties, it was said to justify.
With the offer officially launched the day before, the SDax company is valued at just under 3.3 billion euros.
Hellman & Friedman submitted their first bid in mid-August.
The offer was supported by the company.
Nothing changes in the plans: Hellman & Friedman wants to take over at least 50 percent plus one share.
In due course, the financial investor wants to take the pet supplies dealer off the stock exchange.
With regard to the investor EQT, Zooplus had only confirmed discussions so far.
According to earlier information, however, these were still completely open.
Since the beginning of September, the share had again increased significantly in value after initial discussions with the investor EQT about a possible takeover became known.
Shareholders bet on the bidding war of several financial investors and speculated on even higher bids.
In the past three months alone, the Zooplus share has increased by almost 80 percent.
Since the beginning of the year, the plus has totaled more than 175 percent.
In the corona crisis, many people had bought pets.
This has also been driving Zooplus' business for several quarters.
In the past second quarter of the year, the company increased the number of active and returning customers and also significantly increased its subscription model.
mik / dpa-AFX
