Glanbia to buy US sports nutrition company Isopure

Glanbia has agreed to purchase US-based sports nutrition company Isopure for $153m.

The move is likely to further boost Glanbia’s strong global performance nutrition sector which returned strong revenue growth of almost 22% in the first six months of the year.

“As a premium brand, the business is an excellent addition to our portfolio of market leading performance nutrition brands and provides an opportunity to leverage our infrastructure and capabilities to drive future growth,” said group managing director Siobhán Talbot.

“The transaction, which is firmly aligned with the group’s strategy, supports our growth ambitions and will be value enhancing for our shareholders.”

Isopure focuses on premium powders and ready-to-drink nutrition products and generated net revenues of $74.6m for the 12-month period to the end of July.

Merrion Stockbrokers analyst David Holohan described the acquisition as a positive development for Glanbia and predicted a 4% increase on the group’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, provided the Isopure business can continue to expand at its current rate.

“We believe that the acquired company will have a similar large exposure to the US revenue growth trajectory of Glanbia’s global performance nutrition business that increased sales by 21.8% year-on-year at the interim period in 2014,” said Mr Holohan.

“While the profitability profile of the acquired business has not been released we would expect that margins at Isopure can be expanded and that the revenue growth achieved by the business can be accelerated through being integrated with the existing global performance nutrition sales channels.”