French businessman Francois Pinault, pushing to expand his empire, made an unsolicited $4.8 billion bid Friday for Worms & Cie., which controls insurer Athena SA and Arjo Wiggins Appleton PLC.
Pinault, 60, controls Pinault-Printemps-Redoute SA, a disparate group that includes department stores, an African trading company and an electrical-equipment distributor.
Through his family holding company, Artemis, he also has major stakes in Samsonite luggage, the Culligan water-treatment business, and the Florsheim and Converse shoe brands. (Culligan is based in Northbrook, Ill., and Florsheim in Chicago.)
Paris-based Worms, founded in 1848 to import English coal, is still 22.1 percent owned by the Worms family. Italy’s Agnelli family, which controls Fiat SPA, owns another 20 percent. Worms also owns Generale Sucriere and a minority stake in Danone SA, Europe’s third-largest food company. It owns 40 percent of U.K. papermaker Arjo Wiggins.
“By making this offer, Francois Pinault wishes to extend his strategic investments to other sectors, notably that of financial services, while ensuring an industrial future to Worms & Cie.’s main units,” Artemis said in a statement.
