DealZone

PepsiCo Inc’s offers to buy the remaining stakes in its two largest bottlers came as a surprise, but the biggest surprise may be the scant 17.1 percent premium in the overtures.
    
PepsiCo’s bid to buy the rest of the bottlers it does not already own constitutes a so-called “squeeze-out,” or a transaction in which the buyer already owned some portion of the target and was seeking to own the 100 percent.
    
Even given that squeeze-out premiums are typically lower than cases where a buyer did not own any part of the target and was seeking to acquire 100 percent, this one looks particularly low, according to FactSet Mergerstat.
    
The average 1-day premium for a squeeze-out deal was 35.77 percent versus the average 1-day premium of 44.10 percent for a full acquisition, FactSet Mergerstat said.
    
Put another way, the PepsiCo premium was half the normal premium for a typical squeeze-out. Both Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas rose above PepsiCo’s offer, suggesting that shareholders expect the deal to get a little sweeter.