Efforts to sell Young’s Seafood are again on the front burner, according the Press Association in the United Kingdom. It reported on December 11 that private equity owners of the Grimsby, England-based frozen marine products packer and marketer are working with investment house Stamford Partners on a “potential exit.”
Employing approximately 1,700 people at seven facilities in England and Scotland, the highly leveraged company generated sales of £496.5 million and profits of £21.2 million last year. Active in supplying both the retail and foodservice sectors, its Gastro and Chip Shop brands are ubiquitous in supermarket and grocery store freezer sections throughout the UK. Products range from fish fingers, cakes and pies to breaded and battered fillets, scampi and ready meals. On the export side, it expanded sales in the USA earlier this year through a distribution arrangement with The Fishin’ Company.
Ranked as Britain’s leading seafood specialty brand, Young’s traces its roots back to 1805, when it was founded by Elizabeth Young and her family who were watermen and fishermen on the Thames at Greenwich. It takes credit for a number of notable seafood firsts, including the marketing of potted shrimp in distinctive blue pottery jars and introducing frozen prawns to UK consumers in the 1940s.
The company was acquired by Lion Capital, Bain Capital Credit and HPS Investment Partners in 2008 in a £1.1 million transaction. The deal included the Findus brand business, which was sold Nomad Foods in 2015 for £500 million.
