Ideal acquires Barba Stathis, as CVC starts divesting from Vivartia

Summary

Ideal Holdings acquired Barba Stathis from Vivartia, a CVC portfolio company, for a cash consideration of €130 mil. After the sale of Astyr Vitogiannis, Ideal grew its cash holdings substantially and was on a lookout for a new target. On the other side CVC was ready to start divesting from its Greek holdings and decided to kick off the process by selling Barba Stathis, a frozen vegetables company controlling 55% of the Greek market.

Ideal Holdings paid €130 mil. in cash while taking on €37.6 mil. in liabilities resulting in a €167.6 mil. enterprise value for Barba Stathis. Similar transactions were valued at an EBITDA multiple slightly above 16x, but those took place in 2020 and 2021 in a zero-interest rate enviroment. We believe that the 11.9x multiple paid by Ideal is generally in line with the sector's average.

Barba Stathis new owners will focus on improving its operating performance by increasing its EBITDA margin to 14%, from 11.7% in 2024.

You can find a more detailed analysis in the following presentation: