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Metro Inc to buy Jean Coutu Group in $3.60 billion deal

October 02, 2017 at 03:40 pm EDT

(Reuters) - Metro Inc, Canada's third biggest food retailer, said on Monday it would buy pharmacy chain Jean Coutu Group for C$4.5 billion ($3.60 billion).

Shares of Jean Coutu rose as much as 2.1 percent to touch a more than two-year high at C$24.81 in afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Metro Inc, which had last week said it was in talks to buy Jean Coutu, offered C$24.50 per share for the Varennes, Québec-based company.

Jean Coutu operates drugstores in Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario, and it acquired a generic drug maker in 2007. Metro operates more than 600 food stores across Canada.

BMO Capital Markets and CIBC World Markets were the financial advisers to Metro and Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP its legal counsel.

National Bank Financial Inc was the financial adviser for Jean Coutu and Stikeman Elliott LLP was its legal counsel.

(Reporting by Anirban Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

Stocks mentioned in the article

	Add to a list Add to a list 0 selected To use this feature you must be a member Log in Sign up	Price	Change	5d. change	Capi.
	METRO INC.	70.44 CAD	+0.77%	-0.04%	11.51B
	S&P/TSX COMPOSITE INDEX	21,844 PTS	-0.76%	+0.88%	-

Jean Coutu

Jean Coutu Group
| occupation =
| awards = Order of Canada
National Order of Quebec
}}
Jean Coutu, Post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|OQ (born May 29, 1927) is a Canadian pharmacist and businessman. He is the founder and Chairman of the Jean Coutu Group which he started in 1969. With an estimated net worth of $US 1.6 billion (as of March 2012), Coutu was ranked by Forbes as the 22nd wealthiest Canadian and 938th in the world.

In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and an Officer of the National Order of Quebec.

Source @ Wikipedia

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