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Asahi, Ajinomoto sign agreement to acquire Calpis' outstanding shares
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Friday, 11 May, 2012, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, Mumbai
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fiogf49gjkf0d Recently, Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd – a Japanese company whose president and representative director is Naoki Izumiya – and Ajinomoto Co, Inc executed an agreement to acquire all the 73 million-plus outstanding shares of Calpis Co, Ltd, the latter's wholly-owned subsidiary. Now, Calpis will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Asahi, according to a statement by Kazutomo Tamesada, the general manager of Asahi's public relations section.
The price at which the shares were purchased is estimated to be about 120 billion yen. The figure is based on an equity value of about 119 billion yen, which may be adjusted by about 3 billion yen based on Calpis' net cash and working capital levels at the time of the acquisition of the shares. It is also subject to decrease by the amount of Calpis' planned dividend of retained earning, in an amount greater than 25 billion yen, to Ajinomoto prior to the closing.
By 2015, Asahi aims to transform nature's bounty into the kando (a Japanese word in the business lexicon, which can literally be translated as, “a sense of profound excitement from experiencing superior performance”) of food and become a trusted company with global quality. Keeping this long-term vision in mid, the company's objective is to achieve the business scale required to become a leading player in the global food and beverage industry.
Asahi Soft Drinks Co, Ltd, the core of the company's beverage business, has formulated its fourth medium-term management plan through 2012, with the objective of developing into a company with the vigour and strength to immediately address the accelerated changes in the market and initiative in growth strategy and profit structure reform aimed at achieving a domestic soft drink market share of 10 per cent.
Meanwhile, Calpis has been successfully growing its business by focusing on its core lactic acid beverages, lactobacilli and fermentation technologies, represented by the lactic acid beverage Calpis (Japan's first lactic acid drink) and its brand, associated with the image of health has been widely accepted in the market. It is for this reason that Calpis claims to have become a favourite with consumers over the years.
Calpis is known for its initiatives in high value-added health, functional food and beverage and feedstuff businesses which utilise the microbial technology developed from the lactic acid bacteria and fermentation technologies handed down for over 90 years. It has been developing a solid earning foundationfor the domestic business and focusing on expanding the overseas beverage operations since becoming Ajinomoto's wholly-owned subsidiary a few years ago.
Over a decade ago, Asahi Soft Drinks and Calpis shared vending machines to sell each other's products. That's when the partnerships between the two companies began. A few years ago, Asahi Calpis Beverage Co, Ltd was established to integrate their beverage vending machine operations and further collaborate to achieve the midterm management plan chalked out by Asahi.
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