Founding family raises takeover offer for American Greetings
18 Jan 2013
A group led by American Greetings Corp's founding family raised its takeover offer price valuing the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company at $553.7 million.
Zev Weiss, CEO of American Greetings, and Jeffrey Weiss, the company's president and COO and other members of the Weiss family have raised their offer from $17.18 for shares they do not already own to $17.50.
The latest offer represents a 13 per cent premium over yesterday's closing price.
In September 2012, the group, which holds 63.6-per cent stake in American Greetings, offered to take it private for around $580 million, a 20-per cent premium to the Class A stock's 25 September closing price. (See: American Greetings receives $580-mn takeover offer from CEO)
But since the offer was not considered by the company's board, stock of American Greetings tanked since November and closed at $15.48 in yesterday's trading session.
Founded in 1906 by Polish immigrant Jacob Sapirstein, who started selling cards from a horse-drawn cart, American Greetings now has an annual turnover of around $1.7 billion.
