November 5, 2012
 

France's Lactalis has acceded to acquire a majority stake in the Ljubljana-based dairy Ljubljanske mlekarne from five shareholders.

This was according to stock brokerage firm Ilirika in a press release on October 29.

Ilirika said that Lactalis reached the deal to buy the 50.3% stake in Slovenia's largest dairy with investment firms NFD Holding and KD Group, banks Factor banka and KD Banka and the Sava holding company.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval. The announcement of the takeover came exactly a week after a rival bid by Slovenian cooperatives and the DBS bank ended with the bidders failing to net a majority stake in the dairy.

Mlekodel, a milk trading company which acted on the behalf of the DBS bank and 35 cooperatives in publishing a takeover bid on September 19, managed to increase its stake in the dairy by 4.44% to 36.41%.

Mlekodel chief supervisor Janko Stojkovic said that the cooperatives would continue to strive for ownership control of the dairy and thus for long-term stability of the milk market.