On September 4th, 9 News reported (Editor Hu Jiarong) that COFCO Packaging (00906.HK) released a news announcement yesterday, which attracted market attention. Among them, ORG Technology (002701.SZ) announced yesterday that it plans to make a tender offer to acquire all the issued shares of COFCO Packaging, with the upper limit of the transaction price being 5.524 billion yuan.

Specifically, ORG Technology plans to launch a voluntary conditional comprehensive tender offer to all shareholders of COFCO Packaging listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong through its overseas subsidiary Huarui Fengquan Development Co., Ltd., with a tender price of HKD 7.21 per share, in cash, to acquire all the issued shares of COFCO Packaging.

On June 6, 2024, Zhang Wei (holding 0.245 billion shares of COFCO Packaging, accounting for approximately 22.01% of COFCO Packaging's issued shares on the date of the report) entered into an irrevocable commitment with the offeror. Zhang Wei unconditionally and irrevocably agreed and committed to accept the tender offer for all his holdings of COFCO Packaging shares before the final acceptance date of this tender offer, and undertook not to withdraw such acceptance.

The tender price is HKD 7.21 per share, with an overall transaction price cap of 6.066 billion Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to 5.524 billion yuan.

As of the signing date of the report, Org Technology holds 24.40% of COFCO Packaging through its subsidiary Org Technology Development and Hubei Org Technology. This voluntary and conditional tender offer is expected to acquire up to 0.841 billion shares of COFCO Packaging, accounting for 75.56% of its total shares. Once the transaction is completed, Org Technology is expected to gain control of COFCO Packaging.

As of the time of writing, Org Technology rose 1.62% to 4.40 yuan; COFCO Packaging fell 2.79% to 6.98 Hong Kong dollars.

Based on today's performance alone, this acquisition news did not boost the stock price performance of COFCO Packaging. However, the company has accumulated an 80% increase since the end of June last year.

The road to Org Technology's acquisition of COFCO Packaging has not been smooth

In fact, this is the second time that ORG Technology has announced the acquisition of COFCO Packaging. As early as June this year, the company announced that it would acquire all the issued shares of COFCO Packaging in cash, with a tender offer price of HKD7.21 per share and an upper limit of HKD6.06 billion (approximately RMB5.52 billion) for the transaction consideration.

At the same time, ORG Technology's acquisition plan faces a strong competitor. According to the announcement on July 30th, COFCO Packaging announced that China Baowu has sent a formal tender offer document to COFCO Packaging, with a tender offer price of HKD6.87 per share in cash. The total number of shares involved in the tender offer is 1.113 billion shares, and if all the shares in the tender offer are accepted, the maximum amount of cash involved in the acquisition will reach HKD7.649 billion.

According to public information, ORG Technology and COFCO Packaging are both leading players in the Chinese metal packaging industry. Based on the revenue scale in 2023, ORG Technology and COFCO Packaging rank first and second respectively in the industry, while Baosteel Packaging, a subsidiary of China Baowu, ranks third. According to data from the Forward Industry Research Institute, the market share of two-piece can packaging containers is 20%, 18%, and 17% for ORG Technology, Baosteel Packaging, and COFCO Packaging respectively.