Adeptio, a consortium of Gulf investors led by Mohamed Alabbar, the chairman of the UAE’s largest developer Emaar Properties, has agreed to buy a majority stake worth an estimated $2.36bn in Kuwait Food Company (Americana), just weeks after the seller said talks on the multibillion-dollar deal had collapsed. 

Adeptio will pay KD2.650 ($8.819) for each share of Americana, a 26 per cent premium on the company's last closing price on the Kuwait Stock Exchange, where its shares are traded. The consortium has reached a binding agreement with Al-Khair National for Stocks and Real Estate, which is controlled by the Kuwaiti Al-Kharafi family. All of Al-Khair’s Americana shares will be purchased, Adeptio said in a statement. It will also launch a mandatory takeover offer for the remaining shares of Americana at the same price.

Al-Khair had been trying to sell its stake in Americana, which owns the Middle East franchises for fast food chains KFC and Pizza Hut and also produces branded consumer foods, since early 2014.

Al-Khair at the end of May said that the talks with Adeptio to sell its 69 per cent share had ended. It did not give a reason for the collapse of the deal in a bourse filing.

Adeptio had hired Goldman Sachs Group as advisers on the deal, as well as Allen & Overy as its lawyers. Rothschild advised Al-Khair, which sought legal counsel from Clifford Chance. Standard Chartered Bank assisted in structuring the acquisition financing and joined Credit Suisse, Ahli United Bank, Emirates NBD, First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi as mandated lead arrangers for the transaction.