The board of directors of Swiss flavour and fragrance manufacturer, Givaudan at its 16 September meeting agreed the repurchase of up to 725,627 registered Givaudan shares.
The effect of a maximum buy back will be to reduce the present share capital of 8,725,627 to 8 million registered shares and to increase earnings per share correspondingly.
The company said that because of abundant liquid funds and the high generation of free cash flows, Givaudan will be able to pursue value creating acquisition opportunities.
A sensible move because with the European Commission recently giving the go ahead to private equity fund EQT for the acquisition of two dominant German-based flavour and fragrances manufacturers, Haarmann & Reimer and Dragoco, competition in the domain of flavours has just cranked up a gear.