Frozen-food business Gelit has been sold by its investor owners to Luxembourg-headquartered Wealth Venture Fund Sicar.
Consilium and Progressio, through the private-equity funds Consilium Private
Equity Fund III and Progressio Investimenti III, together with the company MMM led by the entrepreneur Massimo Menna, have sold the Italy-based company for an undisclosed sum.
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The consortium group acquired Gelit, headquartered in Doganella di Ninfa, south of Rome, in 2019 from the US-based food business Conagra Brands.
Founded in 1977, Gelit produces private-label frozen ready meals and filled crêpes for retail customers in Italy and the rest of the EU, as well as the US. The business also supplies the foodservice channel.
Gelit’s CEO Stefano Mattioli will remain with the company post transaction. The selling investor group said in a statement it has channeled more than €30m ($31.6m) of investment into the business since they bought it in 2019, including to boost production capacity and foster sustainability initiatives.
It is also now a B-Corp-certified business.
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By GlobalDataPaolo Santoro, a partner of Consilium, said: “We are proud to have supported the management of Gelit in the international growth path that led the company to consolidate itself as a leader in a food sector that is among the most representative of Italian excellence in the world.”
Consilium is an asset management company focused on private-equity investments through three funds with around €300m under management.
Progressio is dedicated to the Italian investment market, managing around €810m in funds.
Conagra Brands had acquired Gelit in 2012 through its purchase of Ralcorp Foods before selling the Italian company on to the investor group in 2019.
It went on to offload the Peter Pan peanut butter brand to Post Holdings the following year and the egg-whites brand Egg Beaters to the same US company in 2021.
More recently, Conagra sold its majority stake in India’s Agro Tech Foods to Convergent Finance and Samara Capital.
On the acquisition front, it snapped up US meat snacks business Sweetwood Smoke & Co. during the summer.
