Last May 30th Charterhouse Capital Partners signed the closing of the acquisition of a 80 pct stake in the shareholders’ capital of Nuova Castelli spa, the leading Italian manufacturer and exporter of Parmigiano Reggiano. Chairman and ceo Dante Bigi is retaining a 20 pct stake (see a previous post of BeBeez). The closing makes then possible the sale of a former Nuova Castelli’s other business in the canned tuna fish sector as the group use to own Airone, Altomar, Alba and Maremì brands, MF-Milano Finanza writes today.
The UK private equity operator actually bought the stakein Nuova Castelli just after the company spun off its canned fish activity. The latter alone produced 60 million revenues in 2013 thanks to a production plant in Ivory Coast that covers a built-up area of as much as 27,000 sq m and employs 750 persons on a permanent basis with seasonal peaks of 1,000 workers and more. Canned fish production was spun off in a newco (Airone) which was acquired personally by Dante Bigi.
Based in Reggio Emilia, the sole cheese manufacturing activity, which employs 250 workers, has been valued around 350 million euro, included debt, due to 2013 revenues of 290 million euro.
The deal was originated for Nuova Castelli by CP Advisors a New York advisory firm with offices in Milan, founded by Salvo Mazzotta and Marco Garro. CP Advisors has now a mandate by Bigi to sell the canned tuna fish business and in 2015 the same advisory firm will support Bigi in selling 100% of Alival, a leading manufaturer of mozzarella cheese in Italy with 175 million revenues in 2013, which Bigi recently bought through its Dante Bigi srl, to Nuova Castelli.
