Fyffes’ shares rocket after bananas deal from Sumitomo
A lot people seem to think 2016 was the year when the world went bananas. And today, investors in them will be going bananas too.
Sumitomo, one of Japan's largest conglomerates, revealed it was splashing out €751m (£631m) to buy Irish banana giant Fyffes.
Read more: How bananas could one day cure the flu
Offering shareholders €2.23 a share, the deal is whopping 49 per cent higher than Fyffes' closing share price yesterday evening. Shares in the firm went, well… bananas, rocketing over 57 per cent, after investors were told they'd also receive a dividend of a further €0.02 a share.
Among the trading melee, Fyffes chairman managed to contain his excitement, calling the transaction "a compelling proposition for our shareholders and crystallises the substantial value [for shareholders]".
There isn't much worse than a bad banana
Sumitomo is sitting on approximately $8bn of cash, and said it has been active in the banana industry since the 1960s. The group currently imports 30 per cent of the all of the bananas coming into Japan.
In 2014, Fyffes excited the market with its proposed $1bn merger with Chiquita, a deal that never came to fruition.