Prestige Brands Holdings Inc., based in Irvington, has adopted a “poison pill” takeover defense after receiving an unsolicited takeover bid from Genomma Lab Internacional, based in Mexico, in which Genomma proposed to buy Prestige for $16.60 a share in cash.
Prestige said it was “puzzled” by the fact that Genomma took its offer directly to the shareholders of Prestige while at the same time expressing a preference for a negotiated transaction.
The deal would be worth about $834 million. The offer represents a 23 percent premium over Prestige”™s closing stock price on Feb. 17 and a 47 percent premium over the three-month historical average of Prestige”™s stock price, as of Feb. 17. Genomma notified Prestige of its offer on Feb. 21.
Genomma is a Latin American pharmaceutical and personal care products company. Prestige Brands markets and distributes a variety of brand name household and health care products, such as Comet, Spic and Span, Chloroseptic and Efferdent.
Prestige last month reported a 17-percent rise in revenue to $106 million for its fiscal third quarter.
For the first nine months of fiscal 2012, revenue rose nearly 28 percent to $307 million. The company said the acquisitions of Dramamine and Blacksmith Brands boosted sales.
Operating income for the quarter rose 81 percent to nearly $24 million. Income
from continuing operations for the quarter rose 21 percent to $12.5 million.
Prestige in late January completed the purchase of 15 of the 17 over-the-counter brands it agreed to buy from GlaxoSmithKline, a $615-million deal announced Dec. 20. The acquisition of the remaining two brands is expected to be completed during the first half of this year.
“Our outlook for the fourth quarter is one of cautious optimism, given the challenging economic and retail environment as well as the overall incident level of the cough and cold season to date,” said Prestige Brands CEO Matthew Mannelly, who called the season “very soft.”
Third-quarter revenue in the company”™s over-the-counter health care segment rose 26 percent, boosted by sales of Little Remedies products for children and The Doctor”™s NightGuard dental protector. Revenue in the household cleaning unit fell almost 8 percent because of what the company called a “difficult retail environment.”
