The integration of Gent, Belgium-headquartered Greenyard Foods with Univeg and Peatinvest is now official. The merger was approved at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders on June 19, during which time more than 75% of Greenyard Foods’ share capital ownership was represented.
“Because of this historical event, a global leader in fruit and vegetables has been created,” announced Marleen Vaesen, chief executive officer. “The listed company Greenyard Foods (Euronext Brussels: GRYFO) remains the parent company of the newly formed group.”
The stock’s price was quoted at EUR 18.01 when the market closed last Friday.
The merged group’s book value of over EUR 900 million, including a synergy potential of more than EUR 150 million, is well above the valuation of the separate companies. The individual worth of Greenyard Foods was reported to be EUR 322 million. FieldLink, the parent of Univeg, was valued at EUR 375.6 million, and Peatinvest was calculated to be worth EUR 60 million.
Greenyard Foods (known as Pinguin NV until September of 2013) showed the greatest profit of the three companies last year, realizing EUR 61.7 million on revenues of EUR 623.1 million. Univeg rang up a profit of EUR 16.2 million on turnover of EUR 3.2 billion, while Peatinvest generated a EUR 4.3 million profit on sales of EUR 66 million.
The merger was realized through a contribution of 100% of the shares of FieldLink NV (Univeg), as a partial demerger of its parent company De Weide Blik NV (holding 95.4% in Univeg), and a contribution in kind of 4.6% of Univeg, and through a contribution of 100% of Peatinvest NV. In return, 25,513,065 million shares of Greenyard Foods have been issued to the shareholders of Univeg and Peatinvest. These shares will be listed and the company has published an information document on its website (www.greenyardfoods.com) for this purpose.
After the combination and the exercise of warrants by Gimv-XL, the relative weight in the share capital is as follows: 42.5% for existing Greenyard Foods shareholders, 49.6% for existing Univeg shareholders and 7.9% for existing Peatinvest shareholders, for a grand total of 44,372,585 shares.
About the Merged Companies
Greenyard Foods is active predominantly in the processing and commercialization of vegetables, fruits and ready-to-eat food, both deep-frozen (Pinguin) and canned (Noliko). It has 2,200 employees and 13 production sites in five countries (Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Poland and Hungary) and subsidiaries and sales offices on five continents.
Univeg, headquartered in Sint-Katelijn-Waver, Belgium, is a worldwide supplier of fresh produce, active in the fields of fruits and vegetables, flowers and plants, convenience products, transport and logistics. It currently employs 4,000 people (after carve-out of The Fruit Farm Group) in 27 countries, on five continents.
Peatinvest and its subsidiaries have been involved in the horticultural sector for 30 years and employ 400 staff. Headquartered in Gent, the Group has nine production sites in four countries and supplies growers throughout the world with a wide range of substrates for growing plants, fruit and vegetables marketed under the Peltracom brand for the professional market and Agrofino for the hobbyists.
