Meat giant JBS buys veg champion Vivera ahead of American IPO

The secret admirer of the Dutch specialist in plant-based meat substitutes Vivera has revealed itself. It is the Brazilian meat giant JBS, giving itself a more future-oriented profile in the run-up to a new attempt to take its American operations to the stock exchange separately.

341 million euros for 85 million euros in sales

JBS will put 341 million euros on the table for Vivera, acquiring three factories and the research centre of the Dutch company. Not bad for a company which currently has a turnover of 85 million euros and is, at the moment, mainly dependent on sales in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. In February, it was revealed that Vivera was involved in exclusive takeover talks, but the potential acquirer’s name remained undisclosed.

This takeover, however, should not be evaluated based on the current state of the business: the market for (plant-based) meat substitutes is, after all, firmly on the rise. Vivera was aiming to triple its turnover by 2025: a considerable growth spurt, but one that could now be achieved on the global platform JBS provides.

The deal even appears to raise the ambitions further. “By joining forces with JBS, we have access to significantly more resources and opportunities to accelerate our current strong growth trajectory and the expansion of the Vivera brand further,” says CEO Willem van Weede in a joint press release.

American division goes public

The deal is also of great importance to JBS: the company has now fully understood that a new wind is blowing through the global meat industry and that the shift to plant-based alternatives is slowly gaining momentum. The company already belongs to the top five largest food companies in the world – the exact ranking differs depending on the methodology of the list – but through this deal, JBS substantially increases its credibility as a supplier of meat substitutes.

JBS can put that credibility to good use as it will re-launch plans for an IPO of its American division after those plans were put on hold in 2017. “An IPO of our American operations is not a question of if, but of when,” CEO Gilberto Tomazoni stated during the conference call on the latest annual results. In other words, it’s not official yet, but Wall Street is currently buzzing with empty stock market shells looking for a new target to takeover, the so-called Special Purpose Acquisition Companies or SPACs, who would be happy to grab hold of such an opportunity.

After all, JBS can show off with record-breaking numbers for 2020: revenue rose by more than a third to 52.3 billion dollars (43 billion euros), and profits doubled to 5.6 billion dollars (4.7 billion euros). Some three-quarters of that revenue came from the American activities, which were to be brought to the stock exchange separately. JBS, therefore, needs a new revenue engine, and Vivera must help provide it.