Caribou Coffee acquired by Benckiser for $340 million
An affiliate of Joh. A. Benckiser Group agreed to purchase Caribou Coffee for about $340 million. The German investment company offered stockholders $16 per share, a premium of about 30% on Friday's stock closing price. Earlier this year, Benckiser purchased Peet's Coffee and Tea for approximately $1 billion and will now have more than 800 US outlets combined. That makes it the second largest purveyor of premium coffee in the US behind Starbucks Corp. Caribou Coffee, founded in 1992, operates its own outlets and licences its coffee to Green Mountain Coffee Roasters for its Keurig single-cup coffee brewers. It reported a 3.5% rise in comparable-stores sales in the third quarter.