April 30 (Reuters) - Hong Kong-listed L'Occitane

International's chairman and controlling shareholder

will take the French skin-care firm private, valuing it at a

maximum of HK$13.91 billion ($1.78 billion), the company said on

Monday.

Shares of L'Occitane jumped as much as 12.9% to HK$33.30,

their highest since January 2022, when the company resumed

trading on Tuesday.

Reuters reported in early April that L'Occitane's Chairman

Reinold Geiger was in advanced talks with investors and lenders

about the deal, with U.S. private equity giant Blackstone

looking to provide debt financing to fund the deal.

As part of the deal, Austrian billionaire Geiger's

investment holding company L'Occitane Groupe in Luxembourg will

pay HK$34 for each share not already owned, representing a 30.8%

premium to the stock's last close of HK$26 on Feb. 5.

L'Occitane Groupe owned 72.39% of the cosmetics company at

March-end.

The investment holding firm does not intend to increase the

offer price for the deal, which comes a few months after Geiger

shelved a buyout attempt for the company.

Geiger plans to finance a part of the deal using external

debt facilities acquired from affiliates of Blackstone and

Goldman Sachs Group ( GS ). A source told Reuters on Monday the

investment firms would provide 1.55 billion euros in financing

to support the take-private.

L'Occitane International's shares were halted on April 9.

J.P. Morgan will be the financial adviser for L'Occitane

Groupe.

Geiger had decided against a deal to take the company

private last September, triggering a drag in the shares.

The company said in August if a deal were to go through, the

potential offer price would be no less than HK$26.00 per share.

L'Occitane listed in Hong Kong in 2010, and was one of the

first Western companies to sell its primary shares in the Asian

financial hub at the time.

The L'Occitane brand started as a local essential oil

business in France's Provence and now has products including

soap, creams and fragrance.

L'Occitane Groupe, headquartered in Luxembourg, owns 8

brands with more than 3,000 retail locations and 1,300 own

stores in 90 countries, its website shows.

($1 = 7.8265 Hong Kong dollars)