Austrian furniture giant
XXXLutz buys in Germany
The Austrian furniture giant XXXLutz has secured 92.67 percent of the shares in the German online furniture retailer home24. The XXXLutz Group announced this on Monday after the acceptance period for the public takeover bid launched last year had expired.
A branch of the Austrian furniture retailer XXXLutz in Rothrist AG in 2018. (Archive image)
The takeover of home24 will be completed as soon as all antitrust approvals have been received. According to its own statements, after the offer has been settled, XXXLutz intends to delist the home24 share from the stock exchange.
XXXLutz announced its plans to take over the online furniture retailer at the beginning of October last year. XXXLutz offered home24 shareholders a price of EUR 7.50 per share. The offer was thus 124 percent higher than the closing price of the share on the day before the offer was announced, but a far cry from the issue price of EUR 28.50 at the IPO in June 2018.
home24’s top management supported the takeover bid from the start. The head of the online retailer, Marc Appelhoff, said in October that the new investor home24 would make it more robust, especially in view of the current slump in consumption. The company will benefit from the support of the furniture giant in purchasing and logistics, but will continue to operate as an independent company.
According to the information provided, XXXLutz had already secured around 60 percent of the voting rights at Home24 before the offer was announced – around 50 percent from the shareholders, the rest through a planned 10 percent capital increase at home24 with the exclusion of the subscription rights of the other shareholders.
XXXLutz has also bought in Switzerland in recent years, including the company Möbel Pfister, Interio and Lipo.
(SDA)