Kerry to spend €500m this year

KERRY Group is on course to spend between €400 million and €500m on acquisitions this year, following yesterday’s announcement that it is to buy Cargill Flavor Systems for $230m (€170.1m).

The deal is Kerry Group’s third significant acquisition this year and a number of other bolt-on deals are expected between now and January. These should result in the company’s global workforce exceeding 24,000 people for the first time.

Yesterday, Kerry Group confirmed that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cargill’s global flavours business. Cargill Flavor Systems, with annual revenues of approximately $200m, was bought for $230m, subject to closing adjustments.

In a statement Kerry Group said Cargill Flavor Systems has well-established international flavour technology development expertise serving a global customer base through provision of flavour ingredients and flavour systems for beverage, dairy, sweet and savoury applications.

“The business has long-standing relationships with leading global food and beverage manufacturers and employs 700 people through its integrated flavour development and application centres in France, Britain, South Africa, India, Malaysia, China, the USA, Puerto-Rico, Mexico and Brazil, supported by a network of sales representative offices in 12 other countries.”

The acquisition is expected to strengthen Kerry’s capability to provide integrated customer solutions across all food and beverage end-use-markets and extend the group’s market spread in emerging markets.

“The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be completed by year-end,” Kerry Group said.

Earlier this year Kerry Group acquired a Hochheim-based, German-owned sweet ingredients company SuCrest, a pan-European leader in the area of sweet ingredient provision to the bakery, ice cream, confectionery, cereal and snack sectors of the food industry.

Kerry Group also bought British-based frozen food company Headland Foods.