June decision for Lavazza’s purchase of Carte Noire

Lavazza will have to wait two months before they will be in a position to solidify their apparent desire to acquire the Carte Noire coffee brand from Mondelez International.

“Negotiations will likely finish by the end of June,” Giuseppe Lavazza, the world famous coffee company’s Vice President, said earlier this week.

The Italian based entity had been given first refusal of the purchase of Carte Noire and has been given a four week period to mull over the books before other suitors are allowed to enter the bidding process.

“We are officially in (the race),” Lavazza added.

“[But] there is a chance that some investment funds may present a rival bid.

The sale of Carte Noire will have to be ratified and cleared by the European Commission, because of the impending merger of Mondelez and the Dutch-based entity D.E. Master Blenders.

In May last year it was announced that the two multinationals would be joining forces to create Jacobs Douwe Egberts and would contain a large number of popular brands and entities such as Tassimo and Kenco. At the time, Euromonitor predicted that the joint company would have about 17% of coffees global sales.

However with great power comes responsibility – or something like that. Before the deal gets the stamp of approval, there needs to be a little bit of trimming to make sure that they don’t have a monopoly in certain European markets, hence the enforced sale of Carte Noire.

Interestingly, it has been reported that Lavazza initially tabled an offer for “more than $639.4 million” for two ‘smaller’ brands that were under the Mondelez umbrella – believed to be L’Or and Grand Mere – but saw that bid rejected by European officials.