Italy’s Campari says to complete move to Netherlands by July

MILAN (Reuters) – Campari will move its registered office to the Netherlands by July, the Aperol producer said on Tuesday after its controlling shareholder spent more than 250 million euros ($282 million) ensuring the plan went ahead.

The Italian spirits group said in February that it planned to move its registered office to Amsterdam and introduce an enhanced loyalty share scheme, in a move aimed at increasing merger and acquisition opportunities. But when the plan looked as though it might be derailed by a fall in Campari’s share price due to the coronavirus crisis, leading shareholder Lagfin bought more than 30 million of its shares, which limited Campari’s outlay for investors liquidating their shares to 5.2 million euros, it said on Tuesday.

This was below the 7 million to 8 million euros which the Campari board had deemed “tolerable”, it added. As all conditions required for the domicile shift had been fulfilled, Campari said it had scrapped an extraordinary shareholder meeting scheduled for Friday to vote on the plan.

(Reporting by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Alexander Smith)