Lactalis Seen Winning Cash Windfall in Milk Takeover: Real M&A

Silvio Berlusconi has opened the door for France’s biggest cheesemaker to snap up Italy’s largest dairy company at the cheapest valuation for a milk takeover.

Groupe Lactalis’s unsolicited bid this week to buy the 71 percent of Parmalat SpA it doesn’t own valued the Collecchio, Italy-based company at 16 times net income, the lowest for an acquisition in the industry over $500 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The 3.38 billion-euro ($5 billion) takeover of Parmalat, which has the most cash of any dairy company in the world, would also be second cheapest to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.