UK and Irish based manufacturer C&C Group plc specializes in producing, marketing and distributing branded long alcoholic drinks that includes wine, beer, cider and soft-drinks. The company recently announced that it had made plans to launch a special €100 million share buyback scheme that was initially suggested by Orange Capital.
Orange Capital owns a 5% stake in C&C Group plc and had earlier put forward a number of suggestions asking the company to focus on the Irish and Scottish markets, cut back on its UK operations and to sell its US operations. Orange Capital also asked the company to work out a debt program that would allow C&C to fund a share buyback program.
Although C&C has now officially decided to launch a new €100 million share buyback scheme the company denied that the program was initiated due to the pressure imposed by Orange.
C&C also confirmed that the company would continue to focus on both the UK and the US market and as of now had no plans to acquire any international firms to expand its business. The company had earlier completed a €30 million share buyback program in the fiscal that ended in 2015 and will now look to complete the new €100 million share buyback program before the end of July 2016. The company plans to fund the buyback program from its cashflow and cash reserves. Have a look at our best binary option brokers for both the US and UK markets.
In a statement, Kenny Neison, chief financial officer for C&C said
We have always been open to returning cash to shareholders, at the end of the year we signalled that we would buyback shares and we are just following up on that now, we have a strong enough balance sheet.
He was also backed up by the Stephen Glancey, the chief executive officer who said that this new buyback program had not been due to any pressure imposed by Orange but because it was part of the company’s plan for 2016.
Glancey also stated that the company has no plans to make any international acquisitions as there had been rumours of the company trying to take over Carlsberg’s UK operations. Glancey stated that the company was looking at companies in UK and Ireland and should an opportunity present itself, the company would look at making a new acquisition. Orange Capital did not make any statement regarding the new share buyback program initiated by C&C.
