Dollar General reaffirmed its commitment to acquisition of Family Dollar, confident that it can quickly and effectively address any potential antitrust issues and reiterated that its existing proposal provides superior valuation to Family Dollar shareholders.
The Board of Directors of Family Dollar Stores, Inc had late last week, recommended support of merger agreement with Dollar Tree, while unanimously rejecting the non-binding proposal made by Dollar General Corporation citing antitrust regulatory considerations.
In a statement, Howard Levine, CEO of Family Dollar had said, “I would like to note that a letter sent by Dollar General, contained blatant mischaracterizations and did nothing to address the antitrust issues raised by Family Dollar.”
The Family Dollar statement had also recommended support of merger agreement with another bidder - Dollar Tree.
In its latest press release, Rick Dreiling CEO at Dollar General said, “We are disappointed that the Family Dollar BoD has concluded that our proposal is not reasonably expected to lead to a superior proposal without informing itself of all relevant information."
He added, "We have done extensive antitrust analysis using experienced advisers, which confirm that the transaction as proposed is capable of being completed. We are willing to share this analysis with Family Dollar with the confidence that any potential antitrust issues will be resolved."
Rick Dreiling continued, "We are carefully reviewing and considering our options. Our existing all-cash proposal coupled with manageable antitrust issues continues to make our proposal superior to the current transaction agreement with Dollar Tree."
Earlier this month, after Dollar Tree proposed acquiring Family Dollar, Dollar General said it will pay $78.50 per share in cash in a transaction valued at $9.7 billion to Family Dollar shareholders, substantially up from $74.50 per share cash / stock offered by Dollar Tree.
