FDBusiness.com

Cranswick, the UK food producer, has acquired Crown Chicken from the Thacker family and management for £40 million in cash, funded from existing bank facilities. Crown is a leading integrated poultry producer based in East Anglia. It breeds, rears and processes fresh chicken for supply into a broad customer base across grocery retail, food service, wholesale and manufacturing channels. Crown also has a well invested and efficient milling operation which satisfies all of its own feed requirements as well as supplying feed to other pig and poultry producers in East Anglia.

For the year ended 31 December 2015, Crown generated revenue of £83.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was £6.6 million. Adjusted gross assets of Crown at 31 December 2015 were £28.4 million. Crown employs a total work force of approximately 400 across its operations. The transaction is expected to be modestly earnings enhancing in the current financial year.

Nigel Armes (mill director) and Matthew Ward (agricultural director) will remain with the business. David Thacker, the current chairman of Crown, retires from the business.

Cranswick’s activities are focused within the UK and include the processing and supply of fresh pork, sausage, bacon, cooked meats, premium cooked poultry, charcuterie, pastry products and sandwiches. Products are primarily supplied into the UK food retail, food service and food manufacturing sectors. Results for the year to 31 March 2015 showed revenues of £1.00 billion and profit before tax of £52.8 million.

Adam Couch, chief executive of Cranswick, comments: “Crown is a well-respected operator in the UK poultry sector and represents an excellent opportunity for Cranswick to continue the development of its UK poultry business, building on the highly successful acquisition of Benson Park, the market leading producer of premium cooked poultry, in October 2014. This acquisition represents important progress in our long term growth strategy of developing new product channels in both pork and other proteins.”