With the acquisition of Carte Noire, a French coffee company, Lavazza marks another step forward in the company’s international growth.
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Lavazza’s top managers explained that the agreement with the Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) group was finalised on February 29, following the approval by the French competition Authority and the European Commission, and the completion of the information and consultation process with the relevant employees’ representative organisations.
A pool of four banks — formed by Intesa Sanpaolo, Bnl-Bnp Paribas, Rabobank and Unicredit — provided a medium-term corporate loan of €400 million. The financing transaction was finalized with the support of Rothschild as Financial Advisor and Clifford Chance as Legal Advisor.
The transaction involves the acquisition of Carte Noire’s brands and businesses within the European Economic Area (EEA, which includes the 28 EU member states, and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), in detail: Roast&Ground coffee, whole bean coffee, soft pods and Nespresso-compatible capsules.
The agreement also covers a five-year license for the Senseo brand for soft pods and Nespresso-compatible capsules in Austria. The agreement does not include Tassimo and — for the first two years only — instant coffee and products for the away-from-home channel.
A leader in France with a 20% share of the retail market (by volume; source: Nielsen), Carte Noire is the most important of a number of recently concluded acquisitions.
During his presentation, Lavazza’s CEO recalled that in 2015 the Merrild brand — the long-established leader in Denmark and the Baltic countries — became part of the Group, whilst in Australia — the country where the company holds a significant market share — the distribution operations were taken over at the end of last year and a new Group subsidiary was incorporated.
In 2015, the group’s turnover exceeded €1.4 billion, growing by 8%. Lastly, the turnover forecast for 2016 is already €1.7 billion thanks to internal growth and the contribution of the new companies.
The group’s level of internationalisation is also continuing to accelerate rapidly, reaching 55% of turnover in 2015 — thanks particularly to the contribution of key countries such as Germany (+11%), the United States (+20%), Great Britain (+19%) and France (+10%) — and will reach 65% at the end of the current year. ■