PARIS (Reuters) - The family controlling French cosmetics group Clarins has made a $3.6 billion buyout offer to minority shareholders in order to delist the company, French stock market regulator AMF said on Friday.
The group, a target of recurrent takeover speculation, has offered 55.50 euros per share to all minority shareholders. The offer will be partly funded by debt.
Clarins shares were suspended around 1100 GMT on the Paris bourse on Thursday.
The buyout offer represents a premium of around 27 percent to the last traded share price of 43.72 euros and values the whole of Clarins at 2.3 billion euros ($3.6 billion).
The Courtin-Clarins family, which owns nearly 65 percent of the capital and more than 78 percent of the voting rights, has repeatedly denied plans to give up control.
However, the family had faced repeated criticism from some analysts who argued that Clarins lacked the critical mass needed for its expansion.
The death in March 2007 of company founder Jacques Courtin-Clarins had recently led to a new bout of takeover talk surrounding the company.
Luxury skin creams are one of the fastest growing and most profitable segments in the beauty industry and media reports had cited L'Oreal , PPR , Estee Lauder , LVMH or Procter and Gamble as possible buyers.
In the prospectus for the buyout offer, Clarins said its 2008 earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) could fall 14.5 percent from last year, due partly to foreign exchange rate pressures and product development costs.
French bank Credit Mutuel-CIC is advising the Clarins family on its offer.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon;; Editing by Paul Bolding/Rory Channing)