American Greetings receives sweetened offer from Weiss family

American Greetings Corp said on Monday that it has received a sweetened takeover offer from a group led by the founding family, valuing the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company at about $878 million.

The Weiss family, which includes the company's chairman Morry Weiss, director and CEO Zev Weiss, and director president and COO, Jeffrey Weiss, and others, had raised their offer from $17.18 in September 2012 to  $17.50 per share in January and to $18.20 per share yesterday.

In September 2012,  Zev Weiss, and Jeffrey Weiss and other members of the Weiss family had offered $17.18 for shares they do not already own, a 20-per cent premium to the Class A stock's 25 September closing price, valuing the greetings cards maker at $ 580 million (See: American Greetings receives $580-mn takeover offer from CEO,).
befire raising their to $17.50 in January this year. (See: Founding family raises takeover offer for American Greetings

The latest $18.20 per share offer represents a premium of 26.9 per cent over the trading price on 25 September 2012, the day the Weiss family first proposed to acquire the company, and a premium of 13 per cent over the closing price on 28 March 2013.

Shareholders excluding the Weiss Family and related entities will receive $18.20 per share in cash, plus a dividend of 15 cents per share, taking the entire deal value to approximately $878 million.

The company, whose brands also include Carlton Cards and Recycled Paper Greetings, said that its special committee of independent directors that was formed to whet the takeover proposal, said that it concluded unanimously that the deal with the Weiss family was fair and in the best interests of the shareholders.

Zev Weiss said, "The family believes the transaction is a win for all concerned, including public shareholders.  The negotiations with the Special Committee and its advisors were vigorous and arm's length, but we're pleased that we were able to come to an agreement that properly respects all parties' interests."

Commenting on the deal, Jeffrey Weiss said, ''The transaction returns the company to private ownership in a way that we believe enables the company to continue to serve the interests of its customers, employees, suppliers and the communities in which it operates as it has for over a century."

Founded in 1906 by Polish immigrant Jacob Sapirstein, who started selling cards from a horse-drawn cart, American Greetings now has an annual turnover of around $1.7 billion.

The company's major greeting card brands are American Greetings, Gibson and Papyrus, and other paper product offerings include DesignWare party goods and American Greetings and Plus Mark gift-packaging and boxed cards.

The Cleveland, Ohio-based company also has one of the largest collections of greetings on the Web, including greeting cards available at Cardstore.com and electronic greeting cards available at AmericanGreetings.com.

In addition to its product lines, American Greetings creates and licenses popular character brands through the American Greetings Properties group.