H.I.G. Europe Completes the Acquisition of Adelie Foods, Leading Food-To-Go Company
LONDON – March 11, 2015 – H.I.G. Europe (“H.I.G.”), the European arm of global private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Adelie Foods (“Adelie”), the UK’s leading Food-to-Go business, which serves a number of well-known food retailers such as Sainsbury’s and Boots, alongside several of the UK’s largest coffee shop chains. The company has built a reputation as a provider of ultra-fresh sandwich products to supermarkets, coffee shops and the food service sector and prides itself on its in-house distribution of up to a million fresh sandwiches every day around the UK. Adelie is also behind the popular sandwich brand URBAN eat. The group expects to reach nearly £300m turnover in the current financial year.
Adelie was previously owned by India Hospitality Corporation (IHC), led by entrepreneurs Ravi Deol and Sandeep Vyas who will maintain a minority equity holding. The partnership will help Adelie benefit from H.I.G.’s operational, strategic and financial know-how as it continues to expand in the UK. H.I.G. also has an extensive network across Europe which will help support Adelie’s expansion plans into the Continent.
Gavin Cox, Managing Director of Adelie Foods, said: “I am delighted that we have concluded an agreement with like-minded partners who are such a strong cultural fit for our organisation and are so supportive of our plans for growth both in our home and international markets.”
Paul Canning, Managing Director of H.I.G. Europe who also heads H.I.G. Europe’s UK activities, added: “Adelie has developed a strong reputation for service, quality and innovation in the UK Food-to-Go sector. We are delighted to become part of the Adelie team and to bring our resources to bear in supporting its expansion plans.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Adelie Foods
Adelie Foods is one of the UK’s leading ‘Food to Go’ businesses supplying a wide range of customers in the retail, coffee shop, travel and contract catering sectors with a range of high quality, innovative chilled food products. Adelie currently employs around 2,800 colleagues across its six manufacturing and eight distribution locations around the country. In addition to its impressive portfolio of private label products, Adelie also owns the UK’s biggest sandwich brand, URBAN eat, which is stocked in over 6,000 outlets nationwide. www.adeliefoods.co.uk
About H.I.G. Capital
H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with more than $17 billion of equity capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Rio de Janeiro, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach:
- H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.
- H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.
- Other H.I.G. funds invest in various real assets, including real estate and shipping.
Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 200 companies worldwide. The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 80 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.hig.com.
* Based on total capital commitments to funds managed by H.I.G. Capital and its affiliates.