takeover

Dutch-British consumer goods company Unilever wants to acquire the food branch of British company Reckitt Benckiser, though is facing competition from American company Hormel Foods, British newspaper Sunday Times reports based on anonymous sources. 

The acquisition involves around 2.2 billion pounds, or 2.5 billion euros, according to the newspaper. Reckitt is known for French's Mustard, Frank's RedHot Sauce, Worcestershire sauce and brands like Calgon, Durex, Nurofen and Clearasil. 

Shareholders in Dutch paint company Akzo Nobel are calling for a board shakeup and for CEO Antony Burgmans to be removed after Akzo immediately rejected a takeover bid by American rival PPG Industries, Reuters reports. Elliott Investors, one of Akzo's largest investors, managed to get the necessary 10 percent investors support to call an extraordinary shareholders meeting to vote on removing Burgmans. 

AkzoNobel rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from American company PPG Industries, the Dutch paint and chemicals company announced on Thursday morning after PPG's bid leaked to the media. According to AkzoNobel, the PPG offer is too low and not in the interest of shareholders, customers or staff, ANP reports.

PPG offered 54 euros in cash and 0.3 PPG shares for each AkzoNobel share. Using the PPG share price on February 28th, the bid amounted to 83 euros per AkzoNobel share. The Dutch company's stock closed at 64.52 euros per share on Wednesday. 

Delta Lloyd is being acquired by NN Group. The insurance companies came to an agreement on a takeover amount of 2.5 billion euros, the largest takeover in the Dutch insurance industry ever, the Volkskrant reports.

NN Group increased its offer to 5.40 euros per Delta Lloyd share after Delta Lloyd rejected the previous offer of 5.30 euros. 

The court declared USG, parent company of Perry Sport and Aktiesport, bankrupt on Tuesday afternoon. Many parties are showing interest in taking over the two sporting goods chains. Dozens of potential buyers already made themselves known.

Pharmacy chain DA was officially declared bankrupt by the court in Amsterdam on Tuesday, but a takeover by the Nederlandse Drogisterij Service means that the pharmacy will not completely disappear. The takeover does come with some job losses however, union FNV stated on Tuesday based on a letter to the staff.

Beer giants Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller have reached an agreement in which AB InBev will take over rival SABMiller in a 71 billion pound deal, converts to slightly more than 100 billion euros. This deal will combine the world's two largest beer makers into a company that will produce about 30 percent of the world's beer.

Dutch magazine startup Prss has been taken over by Apple for an undisclosed amount. A source for Dutch iOS blog iCulture has confirmed that several Prss employees are now working for Apple.

Persgroep has put in an offer for the British media company Mecom, mother company of Wegener which publishes local papers such as De Stentor and the Eindhovense Dagblad, the companies announced on Monday.

Social media giant Facebook is set to buy cross-platform mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $16 billion, they announced Wednesday.