|
|
|
You can get e-magazine links on WhatsApp. Click here
|
|
|
|
|
|
AB Foods buys UK pickle major Patak's
|
|
Saturday, 02 June, 2007, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
|
|
|
uy Patak's from its founding Pathak family in a deal which analysts say is likely worth around 105 million pounds ($208 million). AB Foods said that Patak's would boost its "world foods" business, which has been benefiting from Britons' increasingly adventurous culinary tastes and already includes the Blue Dragon brand of Chinese, Malaysian and Thai foods.
Patak's was founded in 1957 by Laxmishankar Pathak, father of the current chairman and chief executive, Kirit Pathak, after he arrived from Kenya with just 5 pounds. It now supplies curry pastes, chutneys, pickles and papadams for around three quarters of Britain's 8,000 Indian restaurants.
AB Foods did not disclose a value for the deal, but analysts said it was probably pitched at around 105 million pounds, or one-and-a-half times Patak's forecast sales for the current fiscal. "We think we are in a strong position for organic growth (in world foods)," AB Foods finance director John Bason said. AB Foods, which has operations in about 46 countries, owns a large portfolio of brands in grocery, retail, world foods and ingredients, of which the most familiar to Indians would be Ovaltine, Twinings, Mazola in the US, and the retail chain Primark.
The sale turns Patak's over to AB Foods in all markets except India, where the family has retained its control both over the brand and the assets. The Pathaks have long been keen on India, and the family now wants to bring its British-born curries back to the mother country.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|