The UK’s largest supplier of frozen food to restaurants, Brake Brothers, could be facing a takeover bid from South African service and investment group Bidvest.
Already running foodservice units in Australia, South Africa and the UK, Bidvest made a formal submission to the Office of Fair Trading yesterday [Monday] to obtain consent for the potential deal.
Brake Brothers, which posted pre-tax profits of £29.5m (US$42.2m) on sales of £1.39bn in 2001, has so far declined to comment on the possible takeover, but Bidvest, which is listed in Johannesburg and Sydney, did admit that such a deal “has compelling commercial logic”.
Brake Brothers last month effectively put itself up for sale when it announced it had hired Credit Suisse First Boston to carry out a strategic review. For more information, just-food.com members should click here.
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