Farewell DE Master Blenders 1753! Today Is Last Day Of Trading

DE Master Blenders 1753’s (DE.AS or DEMBF) listing on the NYSE Euronext will be terminated on Tuesday, October 29th. To be fair, this is a mere formality as the stock hasn’t really traded much in the months following the takeover announcement by privately held Joh A Benckiser. While it’s been awhile since the board approved buyout offer rolled in, the ensuing months have been filled with knocking down regulatory hurdles and obtaining shareholder approval. The buyout group now controls over 95% of the listed stock and will ‘commence statutory buy-out proceedings (“uitkoopprocedure”) in accordance with the Dutch Civil Code as soon as practically possible’ for the remaining shares. Gotta love the holdouts and the ridiculous process.

On this subject, you may notice that we have recently made some changes to our ‘Recent Spinoffs’ page. The table now highlights those situations which have ended up in takeouts or bankruptcy. Tax considerations aside, it is rather common for takeover speculation to emerge when a spinoff is announced as the companies are more focused and smaller (ie more digestible). We thought it might be interesting to track this information over time and hope you find it helpful as well.

Disclosure: Author holds no position in any stock mentioned.