WELS (dpa-AFX) - Austrian furniture giant XXXLutz has secured 92.67 percent of the shares in Berlin-based online furniture retailer Home24 . The XXXLutz Group made the announcement on Monday after the further acceptance period of the voluntary public takeover offer launched last year expired. The takeover of home24 will be completed as soon as all antitrust approvals have been obtained. After settlement of the offer, XXXLutz said it intends to delist the home24 share.

XXXLutz had announced its plans to take over the online furniture retailer at the beginning of October last year. XXXLutz offered home24 shareholders a price of €7.50 per share. The offer was thus 124 percent higher than the closing price of the share on the day before the offer was announced, but a far cry from the issue price of 28.50 euros at the time of the IPO in June 2018.

The top management of home24 supported the takeover bid from the outset. The online retailer's chief executive, Marc Appelhoff, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in October that the new investor would give home24 more robustness, especially in light of the current consumer slump. He said the company would benefit from the furniture giant's support in purchasing and logistics, but would continue to operate as an independent company.

XXXLutz had reportedly already secured around 60 percent of the voting rights in Home24 prior to the announcement of the offer - around 50 percent from shareholders, with the remainder coming from a planned 10 percent capital increase at home24, excluding the subscription rights of other shareholders./rea/DP/jha