GUD Holdings’ acquisition offer for the Breville Group has now officially been withdrawn. The decision for the offer to lapse was taken after the ACCC officially opposed the offer in December.
On 16 December 2009, the ACCC announced that it would oppose GUD’s offer for Breville, due to the fact that it would likely lead to a lessening of competition in the small appliance industry.
GUD decided that it will allow its offer to lapse on 5 February 2010, following a review of the Public Competition Assessment, which was released by the ACCC on 22 January 2010.
Clive Hall, GUD chairman, said that the company does not agree with the decision and feels the ACCC ignored the evidence provided by GUD and its independent external data.
“While we are surprised by the extent of the ACCC’s concerns and strongly disagree with the decision, GUD does not intend to challenge that decision, due to the likely significant cost and delay involved,” he said.
Ian Campbell, managing director, said that he believed the proposed acquisition would have benefited both shareholders and consumers.
“We believe the proposed transaction would have delivered benefits to both GUD and Breville shareholders and to consumers, enabling the merged group to leverage our existing expertise to pursue global scale and vigorously compete with significantly larger offshore industry participants,” he said.
“While the ACCC decision is very disappointing, management continue to focus on improving returns from our existing businesses, and we remain strongly positioned to pursue additional growth opportunities as they arise.”