Reliance group firms make open offer to buy 26% stake in Lotus Chocolate

Two Reliance group firms - Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (RCPL) and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - have announced an open offer to acquire a 26 per cent additional stake in Lotus Chocolate.

The firms will together acquire 33.38 lakh shares of Lotus Chocolate from the open market at a fixed price of Rs 115.50 per share, said a notice by DAM Capital, which is managing the offer.

The offer will aggregate to a total consideration of Rs 38.56 crore over the full acceptance, said an open offer-detailed public statement shared by the company with stock exchanges on Thursday.

The open offer starts on February 21 and closes on March 6, said the public notice.

Shares of Lotus Chocolate, which manufactures chocolates, cocoa products and cocoa derivatives, had on Thursday closed at Rs 149.35 apiece, which was the highest price in the last three months.

RCPL is the FMCG arm and a wholly-owned subsidiary of RRVL.

The open offer follows RCPL's announcement last week for the acquisition of 51 per cent stake of the paid-up equity share capital of Lotus from the current promoter and promoter group at a price of Rs 113 per share aggregating to Rs 74 crore.

After that, RCPL made a public announcement to acquire 26 per cent stake in Lotus in accordance with the SEBI Takeover Regulations.

RRVL is a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and is the holding company of all the retail businesses under the RIL group.