By Neil J Kanatt
(Reuters) -Uniform supplier UniFirst on Tuesday rebuffed again a takeover proposal from Cintas that valued the firm at $5.3 billion and said that it was confident of its strategy as a standalone company.
Earlier in the day, the uniform rental firm said that it had offered $275 for each outstanding common and Class B share, representing a 62.4% premium to UniFirst’s closing price on Monday.
Shares of UniFirst pared gains and were last up about 16% after surging as much as 44% prior to the rejection. Cintas shares were up about 2%.
Cintas said its latest move to publicly disclose the proposal comes after UniFirst rejected its bid twice and snubbed multiple attempts to engage with the board after that, including increasing the offer price and exploring alternatives.
“While we would have preferred to have discussions with UniFirst in private, this is the second time in nearly three years that UniFirst has refused our constructive attempts to engage on an extremely compelling offer,” Cintas CEO Todd Schneider said.
UniFirst, in turn, said on Tuesday that it rejected the proposals in November and December after its board and independent advisers reviewed the offer price and sought feedback from some of the company’s largest shareholders by voting power.
UniFirst’s founding Croatti family members have about 70% of voting power.
Wilmington, Massachusetts-based UniFirst and fellow uniform maker Vestis were in talks for a potential buyout by French workplace supplies provider Elis SA last year, before Elis ended the talks in October 2024.
Cintas, which has a market capitalization of roughly $75 billion, said that the potential deal would help scale the company’s operations and tackle increasing competition.
UniFirst is set to report first-quarter results on Wednesday, while Cintas raised its forecast for full-year profit after beating estimates for second-quarter earnings last month.
(Reporting by Neil J Kanatt in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Anil D’Silva)
