IT’S make your mind up time for Nisa retailers who will this month be asked to vote on The Co-op Group’s offer to purchase the buying group.
The Co-op’s offer of up to £137.5m for the acquisition of Nisa was unanimously recommended to shareholders by the symbol group’s board in early October and since then teams from the Co-op and Nisa have been hosting regional events to explain the deal and answer questions.
Should Nisa retailers vote in favour of the deal, The Co-op would buy 100% of the shares in Nisa at a valuation of around £2,300 per share, plus payment of associated deal costs of up to £5.5m resulting in a total payment by The Co-op Group of up to £143m.
Any deal would be subject to clearance by the Competition and Markets Authority. Nisa currently has around 1,190 members and services 3,200 stores.
Commenting on the offer, Peter Hartley, chairman of Nisa, said: “The board was unanimous in its decision to recommend the Co-op offer. While the business has made significant strides in recent years, we firmly believe that the combination with the Co-op is in the best interest of our members.”
Jo Whitfield, food CEO of The Co-op, said: “This acquisition provides the opportunity to create an even greater and more compelling member-led presence within the UK convenience sector.”
Whatever the outcome of the Nisa members’ vote, the deal appears to have already served as a catalyst for change at the buying group, with chief executive Nick Read stepping down in early October ahead of the offer announcement.
Read, who joined Nisa in December 2014, said his time in the role had been “challenging and eventful”. Nisa has since appointed Arnu Misra, who has served as a non-executive director at Nisa since November 2016, as interim chief executive.
