The owner of Vivartia has granted a request from private-equity house CVC Capital Partners to extend their exclusive talks over a possible deal for the Greece-based food manufacturer.
Greek investment company Marfin Investment Group (MIG), which last month announced it had received a binding offer for Vivartia from CVC, has extended the discussions to 30 November.
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The initial period of exclusivity was set to expire on Friday (6 November) but MIG said its board, after “taking into consideration the general circumstances prevailing in the market”, decided to accept an appeal from CVC to continue the talks until the end of the month.
Vivartia operates in the dairy market through Delta Food, including milk and yogurts, and frozen foods via Barba Stathi, which produces vegetables, ready-to-cook meals and desserts.
Delta also produces juice products, energy drinks, and milk and infant formulas for kids through its namesake brand.
Vivartia owns the subsidiaries Vigla Olympus (cheese), United Mill Company, a “dairy market leader in Bulgaria”, and Eurofeed Hellas (animal feed).
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By GlobalDataThe company has interests in the foodservice sector, owning chains including Goody’s and Everest.
Vivartia was formed in 2006/7 when what was then Delta Holdings merged with snack maker Chipita International. Chipita was sold off in 2010.
In September, the publicly-listed MIG reported its first-half financial results, which included a decline in sales and operating profitability at Vivartia.
MIG said Vivartia’s consolidated sales amounted to EUR265.7m (US$313.9m), down 9.7% at EUR294.1m on a year earlier. Vivartia’s consolidated EBITDA was EUR17.3m, with MIG providing a comparative “operating profit” of EUR25m for the first half of 2019, which it said did not include “one-off expenses”.
Covid-19 has hit Vivartia’s foodservice sales, which dropped 40% in the first half compared to the year before, “significantly affecting EBITDA and creating additional cash needs in order to meet the obligations that matured during the lockdown period”, MIG said.
During the first half, Vivartia’s dairy and frozen-food businesses “maintained their sales with a slight improvement in their EBITDA results” compared to the opening six months of 2019.
MIG added: “The extension of the duration of the measures against the pandemic, the significant reduction in tourist traffic in the third quarter and the general decrease in consumer spending in the country, continue to negatively affect the financial results of the foodservice segment, while also for the same reasons, the dairy and the frozen segments are expected to demonstrate a small decrease in the consumption of seasonal and horeca products.”
