Bayer "absolutely open" to further acquisitions af https://www.nutraingredients.com/Industry/Bayer-absolutely-open-to-further-acquisitions-after-1.2bn-Schiff-shop
No matter how you look at it, this is nothing but big time positive for ATB. Did ATB selloff with NTB; if so, that is like comparing apples and oranges. Or, were the market manipulators out early trick or treating?
Some interesting facts after doing some quick research:
SHF was approximately the same enterprise value as ATB pre-announcement even though ATB had nearly double the sales and EBITDA
SHF was trading at $10 as of this past spring
Fidelity took a 10% position in SHF in the spring - they own 12% of ATB; Gabelli was also a 10% owner of SHF
TPG Capital made five fold their initial investment on the 25% stake they acquired just 18 months ago
Given the industry fundamentals, I would not be surprised if a couple of people are sitting with a toe hold just below the 10% reporting threshold in Canada
Although it appears they recently made an accretive acquistion and focused on accelerating growth, they had lower sales growth then ATB the last few years with nil to negative EBITDA growth
While ATB appears to have been sold off on it's 20% EBITDA margin; SHF appears to be 14%
At first glance, ATB appears to have just as strong a stable of assets as SHF
I don't think SHF is ia direct competitor as they are not in Europe, ATB has strong brand loyalty and ATB is the leader in the Health Care Practitioner channel
Maybe someone knows a little more about SHF than I do but it appears to me that it could be the closest comparable to ATB - much closer than the NTBY takeout by Carlyle a couple of years back that sent ATB up sharply.
There doesn't appear to be very much interesting left in this space. I guess the question remains, are the ATB board and management willing and able to capitalize on the opportunity?