Irish Dairy Board Acquires Thiel Cheese & Ingredients
The acquisition complements and strengthens the IDB’s existing added value cheese ingredients business in the USA. Thiel is an excellent fit as part of the IDB’s North American ingredients growth strategy.
Nov 8 2011 --- The Irish Dairy Board (IDB) has acquired Thiel Cheese & Ingredients, LLC (Thiel) in the USA for an undisclosed sum. Thiel is a well established and leading cheese ingredients solutions company based in Hilbert, Wisconsin. Its annualised sales are approximately USD50 million. The company custom formulates and produces cheese-based ingredient solutions primarily for sale to US based food manufacturers. Thiel operates from modern state of the art facilities in Hilbert and employs 66 people all of whom will remain with the company.
The acquisition complements and strengthens the IDB’s existing added value cheese ingredients business in the USA. Thiel is an excellent fit as part of the IDB’s North American ingredients growth strategy which will:
* Help to achieve greater scale in the value added cheese ingredients market;
* Add new customer relationships; and
* Provide further technology, innovation and new product applications
The acquisition is being funded through IDB’s existing debt facilities. The business is being acquired on a debt free basis.
Kevin Lane, CEO of the IDB, said: "We are excited about this strategic acquisition in the USA, which will transform our value added cheese ingredients business. It is an excellent and complementary fit to our existing growing USA ingredients business. The acquisition of a profitable and well established company accelerates our growth strategy in line with our 5 year plans and our commitment to reinvest the divested funds into core high growth dairy businesses. This acquisition is inline with our strategic objectives of building routes to market and routes to value for dairy products."
G. Woodrow Adkins, Managing Partner of private equity firm FCF Partners, LP in Milwaukee Wisconsin, said that they were very pleased with their almost ten year investment in Thiel Cheese and Ingredients. “The strategic acquisition by the IDB is an excellent result for all Thiel employees, the local area, and the state of Wisconsin for continued profitable growth in the dairy industry.”
