Nomad Holdings lands catch of Captain Birdseye in £2.6bn deal
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Version 0 of 1. A London-listed acquisition vehicle formed by the hedge-fund manager Noam Gottesman and deal maker Martin Franklin has made its first swoop – snapping up Birds Eye’s owner Iglo Group for €2.6bn (£1.9bn). Nomad Holdings, which was created by the pair last year to buy up consumer brands, yesterday moved to take advantage of the weak euro and tough trading conditions across the Continent to snare the London-based Iglo from the UK private equity firm Permira. The business, which notched up profits of €306m last year on sales of €1.5bn, was bought by Permira from Unilever for €1.7bn in 2006. The private equity firm originally put the frozen food group up for sale for a reported €2.8bn. Permira pulled the original sale after failing to find a buyer at that price, but it is understood that after financial restructuring and receiving dividends it was satisfied with the duo’s offer. It will retain a 9 per cent stake in Iglo. The move represents a significant step for corporate deal-makers Messrs Franklin and Gottesman in their quest to buy up consumer brands, after raising $500m (£335m) through an initial public offering of Nomad in April 2014. Mr Franklin is the man behind the near-$10bn Jarden consumer goods empire. The son of Sir Roland Franklin, the late corporate raider who was James Goldsmith’s right-hand man, he bagged his first chief executive role at 24. Mr Gottesman co-founded the London hedge fund GLG Partners before selling up to Man Group in 2010. The Israeli-American businessman, estimated to be worth more than $2bn, counts Beyoncé as a personal friend and has dated actress Lucy Liu. Iglo’s chief executive, Elio Leoni Sceti, yesterday revealed he will head to the States to join the cosmetics and fragrance group Coty, replacing Bart Becht who had been running the $4.6bn firm on an interim basis. Mr Sceti, who was credited with boosting the global success of Katy Perry and DJ David Guetta while he was boss of EMI Music, was hired by Permira in 2013. He has helped improve Iglo’s performance by branching out from children’s dinner products such as peas and fish-fingers to healthier ready meals aimed at adults. He will remain on the board as a non-executive. The company was set up by Clarence Birdseye in 1924 after the American explorer and scientist’s curiosity was piqued by the discovery that fish caught on a fishing trip and frozen in ice remained perfectly edible. It brought fish-fingers to market in the 1950s and a decade later launched Captain Birdseye on to the nation’s TV screens. Mr Gottesman said: “What people eat and how and when they eat are constantly evolving, making food one of the most resilient yet dynamic categories in the consumer sector.” |