The revised open offer from Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (RCPL) and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) to the shareholders of Lotus Chocolate to acquire a 26% additional stake is set to begin today which will conclude on March 31.
As per the report by Businessline, the Reliance retail firms have offered to acquire 33.38 lakh shares of Lotus Chocolate from the open market at ₹115.50 per share. The company’s shares have swung sharply after Reliance Retail acquired a 51% stake in December last year. With the additional 26% acquisition, RIL’s total shareholding in the chocolate maker firm would be 77%.
It is to be noted that initially the open offer was supposed to begin from February 21 to March 6. After surging from ₹111 to a record high of ₹480, Lotus Chocolate’s shares have been hitting the lower end in the market every day, Moneycontrol reported. On February 20, trading in the stock was frozen at ₹303.75 because of the presence of sellers only.
Dinesh Saney, a research analyst at Invest4Edu said to Moneycontrol, “With RIL’s capital infusion, the company can set up more manufacturing units to meet this increasing demand. This will help Lotus expand to become a comprehensive manufacturer across the industrial and consumer market spectrum.”
Lotus Chocolate, founded in 1988, is a B2B (Business to Business) firm that supplies cocoa products to big chocolate firms like Vadilal, Cadbury, Britannia. The B2B segment accounts for about 95% of the company’s business while the other 5% accounts from the B2C segment. The company’s revenue has ranged between ₹55-65 crore over the last seven financial years, the report added.