Kirin acquisition to be finalised soon: Lion Nathan

05 May 2009

Australian beverage major Lion Nathan has told shareholders that it would take another week to take over Japanese brewer Kirin, pending finalisation arrangements in the $3.5-billion deal.

Announcing the terms of the deal, Lion and Kirin last week said that they would do their best to settle the terms and execute  a mutually satisfactory scheme implementation agreement.

However, in a release to the Australian Securities Exchange on Monday, Lion said it was still in the negotiating process with Kirin.

The company said it expected an implementation agreement would be settled and executed by next week. According to analysts it could take until 15 May to finally hammer out the deal.

Lion has accepted Kirin's $11.50 per share plus a 72c special dividend offer for every Lion share the Japanese company buys with target acquisition of $6.5 billion. Lion chairman Geoff Ricketts said last week that negotiations had bogged down on terms related to the merger process agreement.