Although the majority of ASX shares have sunk lower today, the Bega Cheese Ltd (ASX: BGA) share price fell more than most this morning following an announcement related to its Vegemite acquisition.
In morning trade the food company's shares were down almost 3% to $6.25.
What happened?
Last night Bega Cheese advised that the completion of the acquisition of Mondeléz International's Australia and New Zealand grocery and cheese business has been delayed.
The acquisition was scheduled to complete today, but that now looks unlikely as a result of the outage of Mondeléz global IT network.
Although it has yet to be confirmed, many media outlets are reporting that Mondeléz has been a victim of the global cyberattack by the Petya virus.
According to the release, both Bega Cheese and Mondeléz IT teams are working together to ensure that the delay is minimised.
With management expecting the acquisition to contribute between $40 million and $45 million in EBITDA over the first 12 months, I estimate the delay will impact Bega's FY 2018 earnings by between $110,000 and $120,000 per day.
Should you buy the dip?
I would be surprised if this delay went on for much longer. So this could ultimately prove to just be a small blip and an opportunity to buy Bega's shares at a cheaper price.
Providing the acquisition does close shortly, I think Bega would be up there alongside a2 Milk Company Ltd (Australia) (ASX: A2M) as one of the better buy and hold investments in the sector.
Finally, Mondeléz might want to consider the services of FirstWave Cloud Technology Limited (ASX: FCT) in the future. The Australian cloud security technology company revealed this week that the Petya ransomware had not breached its cloud platform.
