Chow Tai Fook buys US diamond business Hearts on Fire for US$150m
Top jeweller pays US$150m for US label Hearts On Fire, with shares surging on deal
Jeweller Chow Tai Fook is buying US luxury diamond company Hearts On Fire for US$150 million with the aim of expanding the group's product mix.
It also plans to bring the US brand to Hong Kong and the mainland by March next year.
Chow Tai Fook shares surged 5.81 per cent after the announcement to end at HK$11.60 yesterday.
The 100 per cent acquisition is funded by internal cash reserves and is the firm's first since it raised US$2 billion in a Hong Kong initial public offering in 2011.
Management said on a conference call yesterday that it planned to complete the acquisition by the end of September and open a store in Hong Kong and in Shanghai six months after that.
"The proposed acquisition is in line with the group's strategies to optimise product mix and efforts to promote higher-value products to match the spending profiles of consumers and to encourage repeat customer purchase," chairman Henry Cheng Kar-shun said yesterday.