Spanish Agrolimen buys Belgian Continental Foods

Belgian food group Continental Foods (Devos & Lemmens, Royco, Liebig) will be Spanish property soon, after the acquisition by Agrolimen.

Lucrative deal

Current owner CVC has been looking to sell Continental Foods since 2017, and later that year the first rumours arose that Agrolimen’s subsidiary GB Foods wanted to buy the Belgian company. However, in December 2017 the negotiations were halted because of the difference between what Agrolimen wanted to pay and what CVC wanted to get, and because of the uncertainty regarding the possible separation of Catalonia.

Now both problems seem to have faded, and GB Foods confirms it has made a formal bid of an unknown amount. Belgian business newspaper De Tijd claims the Spanish company offers 900 million euros for Continental Foods: more than two times the amount the investment fund paid for the company with its headquarters between Antwerp and Brussels.

GB Foods and Continental Foods are geographically complementary, as the Spanish group is also active in Italy, the Netherlands, Eastern Europe and thirty countries in Africa and the Middle East, while Continental Foods has a presence in Belgium, France, Germany and Scandinavia. The new owner has a turnover of 758 million euros, almost twice as much as Continental Foods’ 400 million.