Pinecrest Grocers Acquires a Rival: Accretive or Not?

Finance
medium55 min0 submissions
Bain
Scenario

Pinecrest Grocers (grocery, US) is considering acquiring a smaller competitor.

Acquirer. Net income of $203 M, 67 million shares outstanding, trading at $90 per share. Current EPS is therefore $3.03.

Target. Net income of $49 M, currently valued by the market at $858 M. The board expects to pay a 38% premium to that price.

Management projects $60 M of annual run-rate synergies, roughly 67% of which are cost synergies from overlapping sales and back-office functions, with the remainder from cross-selling. One-time integration costs are estimated at $58 M.

The deal would be financed with debt at 8.8%. The marginal tax rate is 25%.

Supporting data

deal

tax rate pct
25
debt rate pct
8.8
integration cost m
58
run rate synergies m
60

target

premium pct
38
net income m
49
market value m
858

acquirer

eps
3.03
share price
90
net income m
203
shares outstanding
67
Your task

Advise the board on whether to proceed. Provide:

  1. Analysis — accretion/dilution to EPS in year one and at full synergy run-rate.
  2. Risks — what would make this deal destroy value.
  3. Recommendation — proceed, renegotiate, or walk. Specify price and structure.
Ready to move forward? Up next: Halcyon Bank: Can We Raise Prices 16%?Next question
How you'll be graded

100 points, 60% to pass.

  • deal analysis25
  • recommendation25
  • risk assessment25
  • synergy assessment25
Hint
Reveal suggested structure
  1. Purchase price = market value × (1 + premium).
  2. Financing cost = purchase price × debt rate, then after tax.
  3. Combined earnings = acquirer + target + after-tax synergies − after-tax interest.
  4. Combined EPS = combined earnings ÷ share count (unchanged in an all-cash deal).
  5. Compare against standalone EPS. Do this for year 1 (partial synergies, integration costs) and steady state.
  6. Sanity check the price against the target's standalone value.