FDBusiness.com

The Hershey Company, the US-based confectionery and snacks group, has agreed to acquire Amplify Snack Brands, owner of a number of international, healthy snack brands, for $1.6 billion (including net debt). The purchase price represents a multiple of approximately 14.8-times 2017 Adjusted EBITDA including identified annual run-rate synergies of approximately $20 million expected to be generated over the next two years from cost savings and portfolio optimization.

“The acquisition of Amplify and its product portfolio is an important step in our journey to becoming an innovative snacking powerhouse as together it will enable us to bring scale and category management capabilities to a key sub-segment of the warehouse snack aisle,” says Michele Buck, president and chief executive of The Hershey Company. “Hershey’s snack mix and meat snacks products, combined with Amplify’s Skinny Pop, Tyrrells, Oatmega, Paqui and other international brands, will allow us to capture more consumer snacking occasions by creating a broader portfolio of brands.”

This strategic acquisition is expected to be accretive to Hershey’s financial targets given the growth trajectory and margin structure of Amplify’s key products. Amplify’s brands compete in many attractive food categories that are capitalizing on fast-growing trends in snacking with a focus on better-for-you products that deliver clean, simple and transparent ingredients as well as unique flavours and forms.

“Since Amplify’s inception in 2014, our company’s goal has been to bring transparency to our products, and clean ingredients and great tasting snacks to consumers,” says Tom Ennis, president and chief executive of Amplify Snack Brands. “This transaction is a continuation of our mission as Hershey also believes in bringing to consumers great-tasting snacks made with the best ingredients possible.”