Consumer goods maker and injection molder Dorel Industries Inc. has sweetened an offer to shareholders to become a private company and take itself off the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The company said Feb. 1 that a buyers group including Cerberus Capital Management LP and Dorel senior executives and their families were upping the offer price to C$16 a share, from $14.50, for a purchase price valued at US$1 billion.
The statement said the "increase in the purchase price follows exchanges and discussions with shareholders" owning more than 50 percent of the company's Class B stock.
The Montreal-based firm made its C$14.50 proposal last year and said it was seeking to go private because its share price had dropped 53 percent over the last five years and was trading below its peers and historical levels.
It gave several reasons for the impaired performance, including global tariffs, the COVID-19 pandemic, volatile margins and a "mixed track record" of operational and financial performance.
The company, which has three divisions making juvenile products, bicycles and home products, scheduled a Feb. 16 shareholder vote on the offer.
Dorel has an injection molding facility in Columbus, Ind., making child safety seats and told a U.S. government hearing on China tariffs in 2019 that that factory, with 700 employees, was the world's largest making such seats.
The company has annual sales of US$2.6 billion and employs about 8,000 people in 25 countries.