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$32 a share is Sazerac's all-cash offer for Brown-Forman Corporation (NYSE: BF-B), valuing the distiller at $15 billion and carrying a 23% premium to its recent closing price against an actual market cap of roughly $13 billion.
Brown-Forman's board rejected the bid again, calling it "not actionable," after Sazerac sent a follow-up letter on July 24 directly to Class A shareholders (most of whom belong to the Brown family), having first made the offer on May 1.
The voting structure that forecloses outside pressure Wolf Pen Branch, the Brown family's voting group, controls more than half of Brown-Forman's voting stock.
No sale clears without the family's approval, regardless of what institutional shareholders prefer. Chairman Marshall Farrer said the company remains focused on its own strategic plan.
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