The end of October is the deadline for non binding offers for Argenta,  a leading Italian group active in thefood&beverage vending machine management sector which is controlled by Motion Equity Partners and has Mediobanca, Unicredit and Kkr as major lenders. Kkr also owns a minority stake in Argenta’s capital.
MF Milano Finanza is publishing the news today, stressing that Argenta’s financial advisors,  Mediobanca and Unicredit, had been appointed last June and had sent a teaser at the end of August to some potential industrial investors, leaving private equity firms waiting for a possible second round.
Three international industrial groups are rumored to be working at the dossier. The first one is Germany’s Dallmayr, founded more than 300 years ago and still controlled by its founding family. Dallmayr is active in the vending machine sector as well as in the coffee production and is the owner of the iconic Dallmayr Delicatessen coffee shop and restaurant in Munich.
A second potential acquiror is said to be Eden Springs, a British group active both in the vndig machine sector and in the offices water distributors sector. A third potential counterpart in a deal is said to be Japan’s DyDo Drinco, listed in Tokyo, with a market capitalization of about 92 billion yen (or about 812 million euros).
The name of Swiss Selecta, instead, is no more circulating. One year ago Selecta was rumored to be interested in buying control of Argenta as Selecta is in turn controlled by Kkr (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Argenta reached 148.3 million euros in revenues in FY ending on Sep 30th 2015 (the first FY Â ending on that date so the figures relate just to 9 months) versus 191.4 millions in whole 2014, a 34.6 million euros ebitda (from 43.6 millions) and a net financial debt of 211.1 millions ( from 211.3 millions).
