UK food producer Cranswick has announced that it has acquired the whole of the issued share capital of CCL Holdings Ltd (Crown) and its 100% owned subsidiary Crown Chicken Ltd from the Thacker family and management.
Funded from existing bank facilities, the cash consideration was £40 million.
Crown is one of the leading integrated poultry producers based in East Anglia and breeds, rears and processes fresh chicken for supply into a broad customer base across grocery retail, food service, wholesale and manufacturing channels.
Crown also has a well invested and efficient milling operation which satisfies all of the business’ own feed requirements, as well as supplying feed to other pig and poultry producers in East Anglia.
Revenue for Crown was £83.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was £6.6 million for the year ending 31st December 2015. Adjusted gross assets of Crown at 31st December 2015 were £28.4 million. The company employs a total work force of approximately 400 across its operations.
The transaction is expected to be modestly earning enhancing in the current financial year.
Nigel Armes, mill director, and Matthew Ward, agricultural director, will remain with the business and Cranswick has welcomed Nigel, Matthew and their team to the company.
David Thacker, the current chairman of Crown, has retired from the business.
Adam Couch, chief executive officer of Cranswick, commented: “Crown is a well-respected operator in the UK poultry sector and represents an excellent opportunity for Cranswick to continue the development of its UK poultry business, building on the highly successful acquisition of Benson Park, the market leading producer of premium cooked poultry, in October 2014.
“This acquisition represents important progress in our long term growth strategy of developing new product channels in both pork and other proteins.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
