National Foods’ acquisition of Dairy Farmers gets court approval
The purchase of Dairy Farmers by National Foods will be implemented next week after receiving court approval today…
Australian Co-operative Foods Limited (ACF), which trades as Dairy Farmers, today announced that the National Foods offer to acquire all of the shares in the Co-operative had been approved by the New South Wales Supreme Court. National Foods won shareholder approval last week for their $910 million proposal.
ACF Chairman Ian Langdon said the court’s approval of the scheme – by which the National Foods proposal would be implemented came on the back of a recent successful member vote – represented one the most significant landmarks in the Co-operative’s 108-year history.
“Today is an historic day for Australian Co-operative Foods, or Dairy Farmers, as it represents the culmination of a journey that began in 2004 when our members voted overwhelmingly in favour of change,” Mr Langdon proclaimed. “As a result of today’s court approval, the National Foods proposal is scheduled to be implemented on 26 November, at which time members will be paid cash consideration for their ACF shares.”
“This change in the ownership of ACF had the support of more than 96 per cent of active members who cast formal votes in the recently held special postal ballot on the National Foods proposal,” he added. “Further, ACF and Dairy Farmers Milk Co-operative (DFMC) yesterday jointly announced that a condition of the National Foods proposal – securing certain minimum volumes of milk by region across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia – had been met.”
“The successful member vote followed on from the Board’s methodical assessment of a range of liquidity options and subsequent unanimous recommendation of the National Foods proposal in the absence of a superior proposal.”
