Van Houtte expands through acquisitions

19/05/05 Van Houtte Inc. has announced that, between February 8 and May 13, 2005, it has acquired seven coffee service operations.

Six of the seven acquired businesses operate in the United States and are based in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Texas and Illinois. They were purchased through Van Houtte's U.S. subsidiary, Filterfresh Coffee Services Inc. ("Filterfresh"). The other is based in the province of Alberta, Canada.

On an annual basis, the six acquired operations add $5 million to Van Houtte consolidated sales and $1.3 million to its EBITDA. Van Houtte paid a total cash consideration of $3.5 million plus working capital for the businesses.

Management expects the acquired businesses to be immediately accretive to earnings and estimates their contribution at about $0.02 per share on an annual basis.

The company has acquired one of its franchises, Filterfresh Tampa, covering 3 counties, from owners Leon, Naomi and Andy Padell. Filterfresh has also acquired the Filterfresh Georgia franchise, covering the entire state of Georgia, as well as parts of Alabama and Louisiana, from owner Yehuda Mor, who is retiring. The staff for both operations will remain on board with Filterfresh.

In New Jersey, Carefree Coffee of Kendall Park will be merged into Filterfresh Atlantic Jersey as a satellite operation. While the owner is retiring, the remaining staff will transition to the new organization.

Filterfresh has also acquired the coffee route of Dispenser Services of Texas, Inc, located in Dallas. The accounts will be split between Filterfresh San Antonio and Filterfresh Dallas, both company-owned operations.

In Naperville, IL, J&J Coffee, a traditional coffee service operation with a strong presence in convenience stores, has been acquired and merged into Filterfresh Chicago. Owner Jeff Madiol will remain with the company. Also in Illinois, Filterfresh has acquired a water route from Nestle Waters North America, Inc. which will be merged into the company's Manteno, IL location (the recently acquired North American Coffee and Wisconsin Glacier Springs).

These two acquisitions complete a rollup of five operations in the Chicago Market over the last 24 months.

In Alberta, Van Houtte completed the acquisition of Coffee Brew Brooks (1988) Inc., which will be merged into the Lethbridge branch.