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Aryzta, the Irish/Swiss bakery, won shareholder approval for its €790m rights issue on Thursday – but only just, as its investors questioned the plan to raise capital.
The company, which supplies buns to McDonalds and owns Delice de France, secured the backing of its shareholders by a slim margin of 52.88% to 46.98%.
Cobas Asset Management, the largest shareholder, voted against the rights issue. It said in a statement on Thursday that it was “disappointed” that the measure was waved through, but added that it will “accept the decision.”
“It has been a bit more fractious because a number of investors thought there were alternatives to what management decided to do — in effect the sale of assets,” said Ian Hunter, an analyst at Investec in Dublin. “In the event, managers weren’t able to. If it had sold the Picard stake earlier on in the process they wouldn’t be in this position. It decided to bite...