Caribou Coffee Company Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOU) is being acquired. If you want proof that the retail coffee market is not a dead sector, all you have to do is consider that Caribou is the second-largest company-owned premium coffeehouse operator in the United States, if you just base the calculation on the number of coffee shops.

The Joh. A. Benckiser Group is acquiring the company for $16.00 per share in cash, for a total sum of about $340 million. The agreement represents a premium of about 30% over Caribou’s most recent closing stock price of $12.32. One consideration we would note is that the 52-week range is $9.93 to $18.84. That being said, even if this is a 30% premium, some buyers may allege that the deal undervalues Caribou.

It is also important to recall that this Benckiser Group, a German firm, is the group which spent about $1 billion to acquire Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. So why is the tea and coffee bull not dead? You have to consider that Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) is in the midst of acquiring Teavana Holdings Inc. (NYSE: TEA) in a deal worth close to $600 million.

Shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) have not yet shown any interest in participating in the ongoing coffee bull market. Its shares are down 0.5% at $40.10 as its peak interest has, at least for now, come and gone.

JON C. OGG

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