Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan-owned Burton’s Biscuit Co. is reportedly eyeing a merger with UK snack peer United Biscuits.
United Biscuits has been put on the block by its private-equity owners, Blackstone Group and PAI Partners. The investment vehicles are considering “all strategic options” to unlock the value of the business, including a sale or float, just-food understands.
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A spokesperson for OTPP declined to comment on whether the pension fund was planning to join the UK’s two largest biscuit makers.
OTPP purchased Burton’s earlier this year and, at the time, the investment fund said there were “many strategic acquisitions to consider” in the UK and overseas in support of its new asset’s “ambitious” growth plans.
If OTPP was to win through and take control of UB, it would bring together some of the largest brands in UK biscuits, including McVitie’s, Jacob’s, Wagon Wheels and Cadbury. Competition regulators would likely require the disposal of some of the combined assets, Stefan Kirk, of M&A advisors Glenboden, said.
“M&A lawyers in anti-monopoly situations will always try to ‘cut the categories’ such, as to demonstrate a minimum of concentration post-merger in any market category. However looking at the respective portfolios of UB and OTPP, it seems that concentration would be high enough to require the re-sale of certain brands, at least in biscuits,” he predicted.
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By GlobalDataA source close to the situation suggested that was unlikely to be a barrier for OTPP, which has completed strategic acquisitions in the past that have required asset disposals to meet competition regulations.
For just-food’s recent analysis of who is in the running to acquire UB, click here.
