Kerry Negotiating a Sale of French Fruit Ingredients Business

19/11/07 Kerry Group is negotiating to sell a fruit ingredients business it owns in France to Industri Kapital, a Swedish private equity company, according to a report in The Irish Examiner. The French operation, formerly known as Cirial had estimated sales of 200 million euros ($292.1 million).

Kerry Fruit Ingredients, which Kerry acquired in 1996, is an important producer of candied fruit and is understood to control about a third of the European market for this specialist food ingredient used in cake toppings, yoghurts and other products.

Talks with workers’ representatives at the two factories involved in the sale have not yet started and it is not clear whether the deal will go through.

After bad results in 2006, when Kerry Group was hit by higher costs and a falling dollar, it embarked on the sale of assets and identified about 11 factories regarded as non-core.

This French operation was not publicly linked to that sale process and it is not clear if it has been up for sale since that process was initiated.

Kerry, whose brands include Wall's sausages, Homepride flour and Cheesestrings snacks, has sold off underperforming units which has helped improve margins as it contends with rising raw material prices.