ED Smith Income Fund, best known for its jams and jellies, has acquired Seaforth Creamery, Canada’s largest private-label salad dressing manufacturer. The transaction is valued at CDN$95.2m (US$83.66m).
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ED Smith said that the deal creates the dominant North American private label salad dressing producer and is expected to be 11.8% accretive to distributable cash per unit. Seaforth reported revenue and Adjusted EBITDA in fiscal 2005 of approximately CND$106m and $13.9m, respectively.
“We believe the acquisition of Seaforth by ED Smith is strategic and fully supports our long-term growth objectives,” said Michael Burrows, president and CEO ED Smith. “Building on last year’s successful acquisition of North Coast Processing, this acquisition will enable us to become the dominant producer of private label pourable salad dressings in North America. With little customer overlap in the US, the acquisition will provide significant cross-selling opportunities in addition to further broadening our customer base, which will include the top four food retailers in the US. In addition to expanding our presence in the high growth private label pourable salad dressing category, we will also add spoonable dressings to our product portfolio.”
“The combined business will build on a reputation for bringing innovative, low cost, best in category products to its valued customers to the benefit of its employees and unitholders,” said Ed Barr, co-chairman of Seaforth.
