Aryzta raises €99m for US buyouts

ARYZTA, the Irish-Swiss bakery group, has successfully raised $120 million (€99.3m) to partly fund the two acquisitions it announced earlier this week.

The Dublin and Zurich-headquartered group, which came into being in 2008 through the merger of IAWS and Hiestand, announced the acquisition of two US-based companies – Fresh Start Bakeries (FSB) and pizza supplier, Great Kitchens – for a combined $1.08 billion last Tuesday. It originally said that up to $140m of the $900m being spent on FSB could be paid in Aryzta shares.

However, in the wake of yesterday’s share placing round, the company has said that it will now pay $880m in cash for FSB and meet the remainder of the consideration, $20m, in shares.

“The $20m equity consideration will facilitate certain FSB management who are currently FSB shareholders and wish to retain a portion of their equity interest,” Aryzta said yesterday.

Earlier in the week, Aryzta issued a trading update for the nine months to the end of April and said that business was responding well to the current tough economic conditions in its core geographical markets.

However, it added that group sales for the period were down by nearly 9% on a year-on-year basis, to just above €2.2bn; but that the rate of sales decline was slowing down. It also said that the sales decline in its European operations was currently most evident in Ireland and Britain.