So, that’s what Hotel Chocolat means by a “large chocolate-dipping adventure”: selling out to Mars for £534 million. Via the sort of deal, too, that makes you wonder, once again, if the UK stock market knows how to value anything. The 375p-a-share recommended bid is at a stonking 170 per cent premiu
Mars, the US candy company, agreed to buy Britain’s Hotel Chocolat Group Plc for £534m (€610m) and pledged to help the high-end seller of chocolate “puddles, slabs and batons” expand internationally.