Business
Acquisition of leading integrated poultry business
Acquisition of leading integrated poultry business.
About this update from Cranswick Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 7153U Cranswick PLC 11 April 2016 \n\n11 April 2016\nCranswick plc\n(\"Cranswick\" or \"the Company\" or \"the Group\")\n \nAcquisition of leading integrated poultry business\n \nCranswick, the UK food producer, announces today that it has acquired the whole of the issued share capital of CCL Holdings Limited (\"Crown\") and its 100% owned subsidiary Crown Chicken Limited from the Thacker family and management. The cash consideration was £40 million, funded from existing bank facilities.\nCrown is a leading integrated poultry producer based in East Anglia. It breeds, rears and processes fresh chicken for supply into a broad customer base across grocery retail, food service, wholesale and manufacturing channels. Crown also has a well invested and efficient milling operation which satisfies all of the business' own feed requirements as well as supplying feed to other pig and poultry producers in East Anglia.\nFor the year ended 31 December 2015, revenue for Crown was £83.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was £6.6 million. Adjusted gross assets of Crown at 31 December 2015 were £28.4 million. Crown employs a total work force of approximately 400 across its operations. The transaction is expected to be modestly earnings enhancing in the current financial year.\nNigel Armes (Mill Director) and Matthew Ward (Agricultural Director) will remain with the business and we welcome Nigel, Matthew and their team to Cranswick and look forward to working with them to develop the business further.\nDavid Thacker, the current Chairman of Crown, retires from the business and we offer David and his family our very best wishes for the future.\nAdam Couch, Chief Executive Officer of Cranswick commented:\n\"Crown is a well-respected operator in the UK poultry sector and represents an excellent opportunity for Cranswick to continue the development of its UK poultry business, building on the highly successful acquisition of Benson Park, the market leading producer of premium cooked poultry, in October 2014. This acquisition represents important progress in our long term growth strategy of developing new product channels in both pork and other proteins.\"\n \nEnquiries:\n \n\n\n\n\nCranswick plc\n\n\n+44 (0)1482 372 000\n\n\n\n\nAdam Couch, Chief Executive Officer\n\n\n&nbs...