Japanese brewer Kirin has agreed to buy Australian vitamins maker Blackmores for $1.24 billion to diversify its business amid shrinking beer sales.
Kirin said that the acquisition of Blackmores is highly complementary to our existing Health Science business.
The diversification also shed some light to shareholders of Blackmores after years of soft returns. It sees shrinking sales as the habit of Chinese consumers who purchase vitamins at a large amount and carry them home ended with the Covid-19 outbreak. Before the announcement of making the deal with Kirin, share prices of Blackmores traded at only one-third their value in 2016, which was the height of the carry-home habit craze by Chinese consumers.
The deal sent Blackmores’ share price to jump 22.75% to AUD 94.26 per share, closing on the offering from Kirin at AUD 95.00 per share.
Meanwhile, the share price of Kirin fell as much as 3% on Thursday as some analysts said that it overpaid.