LONDON, March 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --On behalf of the funds managed by Paulson & Co. Inc., we own 63,390,111 shares in Premier Foods PLC, more than 7% of the shares outstanding.
We note with concern the announcement today by Nissin Foods Holding Co. that it has acquired a stake of 17.3% in Premier Foods after earlier signing a Cooperation Agreement with the Company on Tuesday.
The board has created an environment where they appear to be favouring Nissin Foods, which paid a significant premium to one shareholder, to the detriment of all other shareholders who were not offered any premium, and also to the detriment of other bidders who could be discouraged by Nissin Foods' 17.3% stake.
We communicated to the Chairman yesterday our belief that after receiving the approach from McCormick & Co., the Company should fully engage with McCormick. We also urged him to proactively solicit other offers for the whole Company, including from Nissin Foods. The fact that the Company's longstanding and largest shareholder sold all their shares at 63p, shows that the 60p offer from McCormick should be worthy of engagement.
Refusing to engage is also detrimental to employees and pensioners. McCormick, an extremely successful US Food Company, has a market value of $12 billion compared to Premier Foods' market value of $650 million and has far greater resources to safeguard future pension obligations on behalf of employees.
We believe that only this course of action best fulfills the Board's Fiduciary and Statutory Duties.
Orkun Kilic, Paulson Europe LLP
Paulson & Co. is an investment management firm that specializes in merger arbitrage,event-driven and distressedinvesting. Paulson has offices in New York, London and Hong Kong.
