Lovisa puts a $2 million ring on South African retailer; ACCC to keep close eye on Heinz-Kraft merger: Midday Roundup

Brett Blundy’s fast fashion jewellery chain Lovisa has announced a $2 million acquisition of a chain of 21 fashion accessory stores in South Africa.

It’s the first big growth move by Lovisa since its $210 million float on the Australian stockmarket last December.

While Lovisa has not named the particular company it has taken over, it said the business sold a range of fashion accessories and had a similar store size to Lovisa. It will pay $2 million upfront and another $250,000 in a further 12 months, after the deal is completed on April 1.

The deal will be funded through loan facilities and will also include the cost of $57,000 per outlet to refurbish the stores.

The acquisition takes the told number of Lovisa stores worldwide to 220.

Lovisa shares jumped on the news and are currently trading at $2.52.

ACCC to keep close eye on Heinz-Kraft merger

The ACCC will be closely examining the proposed US$46 billion ($58 billion) merger of Heinz and Kraft, which could see the creation of the world’s fifth largest food and beverage company.

One of billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s private equity firms, which bought Heinz in 2013, will invest $US10 billion in the deal in exchange for a 51 per cent stake, according to Fairfax.

The deal, which was unanimously approved by the board of directors for both companies, would see the Kraft Heinz Company bring in revenue of around US$28 billion a year.

The ACCC will consider whether the merger will negatively affect competition in Australia.

Shares up on open

The local sharemarket has opened with a strong gain this morning, shrugging off a poor performance from the Dow Jones and other international markets. 

Tristan K’Nell, head of trading at Quay Equities, said in a statement the market was flat in the first hour but “did kick on” from 11am.

“Market Turnover was hard to gauge given options expiry overnight,” K’Nell said.

“Turnover into lunch [was] at $3.805 billion. At 12:30 AEDT, China does release Industrial Profits data so we could see some action amongst the commodity players but realistically the market is likely to be quiet heading into the RBA next week.”

The S&P/ASX 200 benchmark was up 45.6 points to 5924.7 points at 11.41am AEDT. On Thursday, the Dow Jones closed 40.31 points lower, down 0.23% to 17,678.23 points.