Source: Autogrill.

Dufry Group has crossed the 90% threshold in its pursuit of the share capital of food & beverage giant  Autogrill and now plans to delist the latter in the coming weeks, it announced Friday (2 June).

The global travel retail juggernaut earlier this year transferred the 50.3% stake in Autogrill held by the Benetton family and revealed a new governance structure for the combined entity.

This preceded the launch of a mandatory public tender offer for the remaining Autogrill shares, with Dufry advancing its position last month.

At the end of the tender period – taking into account the 27,801,682 ordinary shares of Autogrill that were owned by Dufry as part of the tender offer, together with the 335,474,600 ordinary shares of Autogrill already held by the offerer and the 597,300 treasury shares held by Autogrill – Dufry now holds 363,873,582 shares, representing 94.50% of the share capital of Autogrill.

A total of 99.83% of the Autogrill shares tendered in the offer were chosen for share consideration and the holders of 0.17% of the shares tendered opted for the cash alternative.

Dufry expects to issue 4.39 million additional new shares relating to the reopening of the tender period. The first day of trading for those shares is expected to be 8 June.

Dufry’s share price on the SIX Swiss Exchange see-sawed in early trading today, opening at CHF 41.6 before dropping to CHF 41.21 at midday and (correct at press time) suffering a further drop into early afternoon.