Image Source: Tumi
What: Shares of luxury luggage maker Tumi Holdings (TUMI) surged on Thursday following a Wall Street Journal report that luggage giant Samsonite International was close to acquiring the company. At 11:20 a.m. EST Thursday, shares of Tumi were up about 27%, while Samsonite ADRs were up about 2.5%.
So what: While exact terms of the deal aren't known, the acquisition of Tumi could carry a $2 billion price tag, according to The Wall Street Journal, well above the company's $1.4 billion market capitalization prior to Thursday's surge. In 2015, Tumi reported $548 million of revenue and $63 million of net income. Samsonite is far larger, with 2014 revenue of about $2.4 billion.
Samsonite went public in Hong Kong in 2011 after being taken private in 2007 by a private equity firm. The company is the largest travel luggage company in the world, and a deal for Tumi would boost annual revenue by about 18.5%. Tumi has grown quickly over the past few years, more than doubling annual revenue since 2010, and the company's high-teens operating margins are substantially higher than those of the larger Samsonite.
Now what: If a deal goes through for around $2 billion, Samsonite will be paying a high price for Tumi, nearly 32 times 2015 earnings. At this point, there's no guarantee that a deal will through, but something could be announced as early as this week, according to the WSJ. For Tumi investors, the deal price would likely be above the stock's all-time high, depending on the premium Samsonite is willing to pay.
