ZAANDAM, The Netherlands, Nov. 15, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- Ahold (NYSE:AHO), the food retail and foodservice company, today announced that the waiting period under the United States Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act with respect to its acquisition of Alliant Exchange, Inc. expired on November 14, 2001, without objection by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Alliant Exchange, Inc. is the parent company of Alliant Foodservice, Inc., a prominent operator in the growing foodservice market of the United States with sales of approximately USD 6.6 billion.
In light of the expiration of the waiting period, Ahold now expects to complete the acquisition of Alliant by the end of November 2001, earlier than originally anticipated.
Comment by Cees van der Hoeven, Ahold President & CEO
In a brief comment, Ahold President & CEO Cees van der Hoeven expressed his satisfaction at the expiration of the waiting period. 'We can now rapidly proceed with the completion of the Alliant transaction. To partially finance the transaction, we raised Euro 2.57 billion (approximately USD 2.4 billion) in a highly successful accelerated stock offering announced September 4, 2001, that was fully subscribed within 24 hours. The amount also partially covers financing of the pending acquisition of Bruno's Supermarkets, Inc.' Bruno's has sales of approximately USD 1.65 billion.
Van der Hoeven said that the earlier closing of the Alliant transaction means 'we will be able to incorporate Alliant's December 2001 results in our full-year consolidated numbers. For our business, December is one of the strongest months of the year.'
Alliant is a clear complementary fit with Ahold's existing foodservice activities in the United States, operated by its wholly-owned subsidiary U.S. Foodservice with annual sales of approximately USD 12 billion. The transaction further extends U.S. Foodservice's reach to the Midwest and Western United States, enabling Ahold's foodservice activities to serve approximately 95% of the U.S. population. Van der Hoeven said the acquisition offers 'tremendous opportunities in the years ahead, benefiting our foodservice accounts and the American consumer. We're very pleased to be able to bring this transaction to such a swift and positive conclusion.'
To view this release in it .pdf format, please click the link: http://reports.huginonline.com/840633/96947.pdf
This press release contains certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information. These statements are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe-harbor provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward looking statements as more fully discussed in Ahold's Annual Report on Form 20-F. Many of these risks and uncertainties relate to factors that are beyond Ahold's ability to control or estimate precisely, such as future market and economic conditions, the behavior of other market participants, the ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses and achieve anticipate synergies and the actions of government regulators. These and other risk factors are detailed in Ahold's publicly filed reports. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Ahold does not undertake any obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of these materials.