New Peet’s owner Benckiser to buy Caribou Coffee for $340 million

That’s quite a caffeine high: Between Peet’s Coffee & Tea and now Caribou Coffee Co., German conglomerate Joh. A. Benckiser will pay more than $1.3 billion this year for joe.

On Monday, Benckiser said it will shell out $340 million for Minneapolis-based Caribou. In July, Benckiser said it would spend $974 million to buy Emeryville, Calif.-based Peet’s. The German giant also controls makeup maker Coty and luxury goods company Labelux, which owns shoe brand Jimmy Choo.

To acquire Caribou, an affiliate of Benckiser will pay $16 a share, a 30% premium to Caribou’s closing price Friday of $12.32 a share. Caribou’s stock is down slightly from Dec. 14 last year, when it was trading at $13.10 a share.

The stock has struggled to recover since May, when in the space of a few weeks it plunged 38% to roughly $10 a share from more than $16.

That slide came after Caribou lowered its forecast for 2012 sales, citing slower expansion in its single-cup business, which has been buffeted by competition from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. and Starbucks Corp.

Caribou’s independent directors have unanimously approved the Benckiser deal, which would keep the company based in Minneapolis and operated as its own brand. The business, founded in 1992, has 610 coffeehouses in 22 states and 10 international markets and also sells its coffees in grocery stores, hotels and other retail channels.

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