The PAN Food empire marches on: the company just announced its successful acquisition of Bibica Corporation with 50.07 per cent of total share ownership.

PAN Food first put up public bids for more than 1.12 million Bibica shares, stock code BBC on the HCM Stock Exchange, from July 6 to August 21, 2017, at VND112,800 (US$5.02) per share.

Now that PAN Food completed the purchase of nearly one million Bibica outstanding shares, or 87 per cent of its initial request. It owns up to 7.8 million shares at Bibica and can legally act as Bibica’s parent company.

After the acquisition, PAN Food, itself a subsidiary of the PAN Group, reported having increased the level of ownership from 43.73 per cent to more than half of Bibica’s shares, outranking Bibica’s second largest shareholder Lotte Confectionery Co Ltd at 44.03 per cent ownership.

Since 2014, PAN Food has successfully finished a number of mergers and acquisitions with big names in the Vietnamese food industry, such as Long An Food Processing Export JSC and Aquatex Bentre.

At the moment, Bibica’s shares are traded at around VND110,000 ($4.89) per share, with more than 15.4 million shares on the market.

Meanwhile, PAN Group (sticker PAN) is being traded on the HCM Stock Exchange at VND38,000 ($1.69) per share, with more than 117 million outstanding shares.

According to Bibica’s 2016 financial report, the company had a total net income of VND81 billion ($3.6 million), with 12 per cent coming from dividends in cash. It plans to increase 2017’s post-tax income to VND104.3 billion ($4.6 million) and use 18 per cent of said income for shareholders’ dividends.

Bibica’s food products are sold at up to 115,000 retail outlets and 500 supermarkets and convenience stores across the country. — VNS