EP Global Commerce, the investment company of Daniel Kretinsky and Patrik Tkac, is increasing its stake in the German Metro group to just under 30 %. The Czech businessman will therefore become its largest shareholder.
Option
By exercising a call option, EP Global Commerce acquired 44,950,974 Metro shares from Franz Haniel. As such, Kretinsky and his partner now hold 29.99 % of the shares and become the largest shareholder. That number is not a coincidence: German law stipulates that a public takeover bid must be made if one party holds at least 30 % of the shares in a company.
In a press release, EP Global Commerce states that the deal demonstrates that the company is a reliable and responsible investor. Kretinsky also expects “appropriate representation” on the Supervisory Board and owns another call option to acquire additional shares from Haniel.
In August, Kretinsky had already made an unsuccessful takeover bid of 5.8 billion euros for the holding company of Makro. Meridian Stiftung and Beisheim Holding, which together have an interest of almost 21 % in Metro, were able to stop a full acquisition at that time.
