A long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) on a U.S. stock exchange of Strauss Coffee, a multinational joint venture controlled by Israel’s Strauss Group and the Texas-based private equity fund TPG Capital, is finally moving forward.
Strauss and TPG Capital Management, have submitted a draft confidential prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Strauss said on Monday.
“There is no certainty that the IPO will indeed be finalized, and if it is, on which date,” Strauss said in a statement. further details were not available.
TPG bought a 25% stake in Strauss Coffee for $293 million in 2008. Although Strauss Coffee grew through acquisitions to become the world’s fifth largest maker of ground and roasted coffee and No. 4 in instant coffee, with leadership position in central and eastern Europe and Brazil, the partnership has been far from straightforward.
Strauss and TPG went to court after the U.S. fund sought to block Strauss’ ouster of Todd Morgan, the joint venture’s CEO and a former TPG employee. TPG lost that fight in court and Morgan was ousted early last year.
Three years ago, TPG and Strauss tried to sell the coffee company’s Russian and Eastern European businesses in order to buy out TPG’s stake with the proceeds. After abortive talks with India’s Tata Coffee and Master Blenders, TPG urged an IPO.
That set off a dispute that ended up in court, along with the dispute over Morgan. Strauss contended that TPG sought to inflate Strauss Coffee’s value while TPG accused Strauss of deflating its value in order to block any chance of an IPO and buy out the private equity fund cheaply. The court dismissed TPG’s allegations.
