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Fast-growing premium snack brand Pipers Crisps is eyeing up potential acquisition targets in the UK and overseas after hiring advisers to conduct a strategic review of options, including a possible future sale.
Corporate finance boutique Spayne Lindsay has been tasked with coming up with a plan to realise the potential value of the brand in preparation for an eventual sale.
The Lincolnshire-based crisp manufacturer recently broke into The Grocer’s annual Fast 50 list, thanks to 21.2% average growth over the past two years, with revenues up 17% to £9.8m in the year to 31 Jan 2017.
Pipers, founded in 2004 by three farmers, has so far eschewed the supermarkets in favour of the foodservice industry and indie retailers, including pubs, delis, coffee shops, restaurants and Virgin trains. It also exports to 37 countries worldwide, with exports growing rapidly to 6% of total sales last year
See the grocer.co.uk/finance later this morning for the full details
Morning update
This week’s edition of The Grocer has analysis of the CMA’s decision to green-light the Tesco/Booker deal, plus a look at the implications of Nisa members’ vote to approve its sale to The Co-op.
Also in this week’s magazine, Protein energy ball brand Bounce Foods is seeking external investment to help continue its international rollout, adult soft drinks start-up Nix & Kix has secured almost £500,000 from industry heavyweights and Spare Fruit, a snack firm that repurposes otherwise discarded fruit into air-dried crisps, is seeking cash from the crowd to win new supermarket listings.
See the grocer.co.uk this morning for full details.
On the markets this morning, the FTSE 100 has lost the ground it made back up yesterday after a difficult week, falling another 0.3% to 7,362.2pts.
Early risers include McColl’s Retail Group (MCLS), up 3% to 288.4p, Hotel Chocolat (HOTC), up 2.7% to 359.5p, Nichols (NICL), up 2% to 1,720.1p and Glanbia (GLB), up 1.3% to €16.17.
Fallers include Green King (GNK), down 3.7% to 516.5p, PureCircle (PURE), down 3.2% to 470.9p and Just Eat (JE), down 2.8% to 810.3p.
Tesco (TSCO) and Booker (BOK) have lost some of the share price momentum the CMA’s green light to their merger provided this week, by both losing 1.4% this morning to 181.9p and 206.3p respectively.
Yesterday in the City
After a tough run since Monday, the FTSE 100 took back some ground on Thursday rising back 0.2% to 7,386.9pts.
Premier Foods (PFD) continued its share price recovery following stellar second quarter sales growth, rebounding another 6.5% to 41.25p.
Just Eat (JE) was also on the up after securing CMA approval for its takeover of Hungry House, rising 2.6% to 824p.
Other risres included Fevertree Drinks (FEVR), up 3.1% to 1,980, Britvic (BVIC), up 2.8% to 761p, SSP Group (SSPG), up 2.6% to 611p, Greggs (GRG), up 2.6% to 1,356p, Morrisons (MRW), up 1.8% to 210.8p and PZ Cussons (PZC) up 1.8% to 306.3p.
The day’s few major company fallers included Ocado Group (OCDO), down 1.3% to 246.3p, and Marks & Spencer (MKS), down 1.6% to 303.6p.
Other fallers included McColl’s (MCLS), down 3.5% to 280p, Real Good Food (RGD), down 2.1% to 23p and Hilton Food Group (HFG), down 1.9% to 843.5p.
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