Dec. 19 (UPI) — Hershey Co. will expand its snack food portfolio after purchasing Amplify Snack Brands, Inc. in a deal worth $1.6 billion, the company announced Monday.
Amplify is the maker of SkinnyPop popcorn, Tyrrell’s potato chips, Oatmega whey protein and Paqui chips, best-known for their ultra-spicy “Haunted Ghost Pepper” flavor.
“The acquisition of Amplify and its product portfolio is an important step in our journey to becoming an innovative snacking powerhouse as together it will enable us to bring scale and category management capabilities to a key sub-segment of the warehouse snack aisle,” Hershey CEO Michele Buck said in a statement.
The transaction will be structured as a tender offer followed by a merger, Hershey said. And the $1.6 billion value includes Amplify’s net debt of approximately $600 million, as well as a make-whole payment of $76 million related to the Tax Receivable Agreement.
According to Bloomberg, Amplify’s stock value has dropped since the company went public in 2015 at a value of $18 per share. As recently as Friday, Amplify’s stocks were all the way down to $7 per share. But after the announcement Monday, shares went up to $11.95.
Hershey, meanwhile, has been successful this year, with shares gaining 10 percent, boosting the company’s valuation to $24 billion. However, the snackmaker did take a slight dip after the Amplify announcement, with shares falling 1.3 percent to $112.65.
Hershey was the second large food corporation to purchase a smaller one on Monday.
The Campbell Soup Company purchased Snyder’s-Lance, the second-largest salty snack maker in the United States, for nearly $5 billion.
