An auction of Hain Celestial’s international assets is drawing to a close as supplier Princes and two private equity firms enter the final round of bidding, The Grocer has learned.
The sale of the struggling US group’s international business – which The Grocer revealed in February – includes UK-based Hain Daniels and household brands such as Ella’s Kitchen, New Covent Garden Soup and Sun-Pat.
Bankers at Goldman Sachs are overseeing the auction and hope a deal can be finalised in the coming weeks, according to three sources with knowledge of the process.
Liverpool-headquartered Princes was locked in competition with private equity players Aurelius and Endless to come up with a winning bid, the sources said.
Despite the advanced stages of the auction, there is no guarantee a deal will reach a conclusion given the complex backdrop surrounding the sale.
Hain International CEO Wolfgang Goldenitsch said: “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on market speculation.”
Princes and Aurelius also declined to comment, while Endless did not respond to a request for comment.
As food trends and shopper preferences have evolved in recent years, the more traditional offerings of global food giants have come under increasing pressure, compounded by consumers trading down to own label to cope with inflation.
Hain has been battling with a turnaround for almost three years, but sales have continued to decline, and it posted a loss of $531m in the year to 30 June 2025 as it wrote off the value of assets. Losses have continued in the new financial year, with a $106m deficit recorded in the third quarter to 31 March 2026, with $51m related to the sale of its North American snacks business.
It has managed to get debt down to $549m, compared with $705m at the beginning of the new fiscal year. But its public struggles have led to its shares losing almost 99% of their value over the past five years, with a 66% drop in the past 12 months. Hain now has a market cap of just $50m.
Hain International is largely made up of the Hain Daniels UK business, which operates from nine factories and accounts for the majority of the division’s $671m in annual sales. Its brands include Ella’s Kitchen, New Covent Garden, Yorkshire Provender, Hartley’s, Robertson’s and Linda McCartney’s, among others. It also has a lucrative own-label plant-based milk business in Europe.
City sources expected Hain to be looking to achieve an EBITDA multiple of at least 6x for the international business, which would put the price tag at about $400m (£302m).
One source said individually the brands owned by Hain International were still strong, but the portfolio was underperforming and didn’t sit well together given the disparate categories and varied supply chain temperatures.
“There is very little fundamental growth in traditional food,” the source added. “Hain is part of the old school of conglomerate mentality, which has gone out of fashion in the industry as multinationals tidy and trim portfolios. In today’s consumer backdrop there needs to be more rationale for putting assets together.
“Princes still exists in that old world, with its collection of categories that also don’t quite fit together, so it makes perfect sense for them to do the deal. It can extract some big synergies and is desperate to buy turnover to swell the size of the group.”
Another dealmaker source added the value in Hain Daniels was in the individual parts rather than the whole. “A private financial backer is perhaps better suited to taking a long view in fixing the businesses and driving a break-up of the parts down the road. Hain’s international brands are unloved and need reinvestment and patience to turn them around. That is more difficult for Princes as a publicly listed group where it’s all about the short term – one profits warning or missed trading forecast, and it puts them under more pressure.”
Princes has a war chest of £400m to pursue its M&A strategy outlined in its £1.2bn London IPO last year. The group, which remains majority owned by Italy’s NewPrinces (formerly Newlat), said it was closing in on its maiden deal as a listed company when it reported results for 2025 in March. Princes said it was looking at five short-term targets, three of which had revenues of about £500m.
Leeds-based private equity firm Endless has a long history of investment in the food & drink industry and currently owns private label cake manufacturer BBF. It is in the process of exited Hovis after agreeing a sale to Associated British Foods’ Allied Bakeries in August last year. Endless also previously owned Karro Food Group, KTC Edibles, Chaucer Foods, Karnova Food Group and West Cornwall Pasty Co.
Headquartered in Munich and London, Aurelius specialises in private equity deals in technology, industrials & chemicals and lifestyle & consumer goods, as well as debt funding and real estate investments. The firm handed TG Jones (formerly WH Smith) a £35m rescue loan in May and also owned high street retailer The Body Shop before its administration in 2024. It also provided a £12m loan to The Original Factory Shop in 2024 before the now-defunct discounter was bought by Modella Capital. Last year, Aurelius agreed a debt funding package for health and beauty retailer Bodycare. It also owns Belgian deli meats supplier DeliBarn.
Founded in 1993, Hain Food Group became Hain Celestial following a merger with Celestial Seasonings in 2000. The group has completed more than 20 acquisitions in its history, but now sold a number of the assets, Tilda in 2019 and Thinsters and ParmCrisps in 2024.
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