Israeli flavors and natural specialty fine ingredients company Frutarom Industries Ltd. (TASE: FRUT; LSE:FRUT) has acquired 100% of Swiss company Mühlehof Gewürze AG for $7 million (CHF 6.69 million). The transaction, which was Frutarom's sixth this year was completed upon signing and financed through bank debt.
Mühlehof reported revenue of $ 3.4 million (CHF 3.35 million) for the 12 months ending in June 2017. Founded in 1979, Mühlehof develops, produces, and markets savory taste solutions (the non-sweet spectrum of flavors), including flavors, seasoning blends, marinades and functional ingredients for the food industry, with emphasis on convenience foods and meats.
Mühlehof’s activity is synergetic with Frutarom’s activity in Europe in the field of savory, which has grown significantly in recent years, particularly with its activity in Switzerland. Frutarom is a leading player in Switzerland in the field of flavors, including savory taste solutions and flavor extracts and products also containing fruit or vegetable or other natural components (Food Systems) and in the field of natural specialty fine ingredients, particularly in natural pharma/nutraceutical extracts and natural functional food ingredients. The acquisition of Mühlehof will strengthen Frutarom’s market leadership in Switzerland.
Frutarom president and CEO Ori Yehuda said, said, "The Mühlehof acquisition is a continuation of the implementation of Frutarom’s rapid and profitable growth strategy and the realization of its vision 'to be the preferred partner for tasty and healthy success. This is the sixth acquisition we have made this year after having acquired Unique Flavors in South Africa, the French flavors company René Laurent, the Vietnamese flavors company WFF, SDFLC in Brazil with its flavor solutions for ice creams and desserts, and acquiring Flavours and Essences in the UK which we announced last week. Since 2015 we have already acquired 25 companies which have been successfully integrated into our global activity and have been and will continue contributing to further growth in sales and improved profits and margins through maximal capitalization on the synergies they bring. We have an outstanding pipeline of further strategic acquisitions of companies and activities within the scope of our operations and we will continue carrying out our rapid profitable growth strategy, which is based on combining profitable internal growth and strategic acquisitions, in order to achieve the targets we recently set: sales of at least US$ 2 billion with an EBITDA margin of over 22% in our core activities by the year 2020.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 22, 2017
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