A Dublin bakery company was set up eight years ago has been sold for £51 million. Cuisine de France, which popularised the baguette in Ireland, has been bought by IAWS, the Irish agri-food group.
The deal, which is the biggest in IAWS history, will make Cuisine de France's two major shareholders into multimillionaires. The company, which sells its product in 1,800 stores North and South, is now expected to make an aggressive push into Britain and the rest of Europe.
Cuisine de France is in Tallaght, Co Dublin, and employs about 150 people in distributing and marketing its partly-baked bread and confectionery varieties.
The "par-baked" concept, where bread and cakes are baked until brown and then frozen before their final in-store cooking, involves minimal waste and allows outlets to streamline supply to suit demand. It also provides the homely aroma of freshly-baked bread wafting through thousands of stores.
The chairman of Cuisine de France and founder member, Dr Pat Loughrey, and the managing director, Mr Ronan McNamee, are majority shareholders in the company, and the proceeds of the sale will be split evenly between them.
The initial £40 million cash payment from IAWS will be worth about £20 million each to the two shareholders, although if they had borrowed to invest in the business, the net gain would have been reduced.
When the company was put up for sale about two months ago, it drew interest from a dozen parties. Among those said to have expressed interest were Van der Bergh Foods and Green Isle.
IAWS, which will pay £40 million upfront and £11 million over the next five years, is a major player in agri-business. A publicly quoted company, its last returns showed pre-tax profits of £6.1 million for the six months to January 31st last.
Among its businesses are Shamrock Foods and Gouldings Fertilisers.
New owners plan to spend further £16 million: page 16