The firm initially built its stake in the Robinsons juice-to-Tango drinks maker in 2006 at a price of 268p at the height of the buy-out frenzy. Speculation quickly mounted that the firm was putting together a takeover approach for the drinks maker, which is also the main distributor for Pepsi in Europe.
However, it was rumoured that Pepsi, which also has 5% of the business, wasn’t pleased with the prospect of selling out to Permira, and the bid failed to materialise.
Wednesday’s share sale, placed by Britvic advisers UBS, made about £81.5m for Permira, which was able to take advantage of recent strength in the drinks maker’s shares.
Earlier this month, Britvic posted a 16.3% rise in half-year profit and said it was seeing signs of improvement in the British soft drinks market. But the shares slid on news of Permira’s exit, ending down 15.5 at 275p and valuing the group at about £625m.
A spokesman for Permira said: “The strategy is to make controlled investments and, as such, we decided to sell what was a passive stake despite the company’s good performance.”
Source: Telegraph
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