Keurig to buy back its shares from coffee company Lavazza

BUSINESS

Keurig to buy back its shares from coffee company Lavazza

The Associated Press Published Monday, February 23, 2015 2:19PM EST

Keurig's Vue individual coffee roasting system is displayed during a Green Mountain Coffee Roasters news conference in New York, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012. (AP / Kathy Willens)

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NEW YORK -- Keurig said Monday that it will pay about US$624 million to buy back its shares owned by Italian coffee company Luigi Lavazza SpA.

Lavazza has been reducing its stake in Keurig to raise cash for deals with other companies.

Keurig, which sells single-serve coffee machine, said it will buy 5.23 million shares of its shares from Lavazza for $119.18 per share, a 3 per cent discount from Keurig's closing price of $122.87 on Friday.

The deal is expected to close by March 3. At that time, Lavazza's stake in Keurig will drop to 3 per cent from 6.1 per cent.

Lavazza owned a 7.8 per cent stake in Keurig as of Jan. 26, but has been steadily reducing its stake. It sold about 2 million shares between Jan. 26 and Feb. 3, and about 380,000 shares on Jan. 23, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shares of Keurig Green Mountain Inc., based in Waterbury, Vermont, rose $1.14 to $124.01 in morning trading Monday.