HERZLIYA, Israel, July 06, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Frutarom Industries Ltd. ("Frutarom"), one of the world's 10 largest companies in the field of flavors and specialty fine ingredients, announced today the exercise of its option for the purchase of the remaining 5% balance of share capital of Les Ingredients Alimentaires BSA Inc. ("BSA") of Canada for approximately USD 2 million (approx. CAD 2.75 million), and this is further to the purchase of 95% of BSA’s share capital in May 2015.
BSA was founded in 1989 and its main activity is the development, production and marketing of unique and innovative savory taste solutions (the non-sweet spectrum of flavors) that include seasoning blends and functional ingredients for the food industry, with particular focus on the areas of processed meats and convenience foods. BSA has a large and efficient production site in Montreal and around 150 employees. The acquisition of BSA has greatly strengthened Frutarom’s position in the field of savory in North America. Since the acquisition BSA has exhibited double-digit growth along with significantly improved profitability margins.
The partners now managing BSA successfully will continue in their managerial roles with the company.
Ori Yehudai, President and CEO of Frutarom, said today: “Frutarom sees great strategic importance for rapid growth in the field of savory flavors in which now holds a leading market position, and is focused on developing unique innovative natural and healthy products with high added value at its sites throughout the world. The global market for savory flavors is growing due to the rise in standard of living and changes in lifestyle and consumer habits bringing about increased demand for processed and convenience foods both for home consumption and for eating out. Frutarom embarked about 10 years ago on a strategic course of action to significantly build up its global savory activity by acquiring leading companies in their fields possessing unique solutions and a strong position in strategic target markets.
"We are pleased with the success of the BSA acquisition which has contributed to significantly strengthening our presence in field of savory taste solutions in Canada and North America,” said Mr. Yehudai. “The acquisition materially strengthened the technological capabilities, the product portfolio we offer our customers, and our broad local and global customer base. BSA is one of the leading local manufacturers in the Canadian market and, as we expected, the combination of a leading local manufacturing company with the support of a global company like Frutarom has strengthened our market leadership and accelerated the pace of our profitable internal growth.
“Since the acquisition BSA has demonstrated fine rates of growth in sales while significantly improving its profit margins, and we intend to continue exploiting and combining BSA’s R&D and sales and marketing platform in Canada and the markets of the region with Frutarom’s global R&D and sales and marketing platform in order to leverage and fulfill the abundant cross-selling opportunities between the activities,” said Mr. Yehudai.
"We are working on seeking out and executing additional strategic acquisitions of companies and activities in our fields of activity, with special focus on high-growth markets, and we have a strong pipeline of potential strategic acquisitions,” concluded Mr. Yehudai. “We will continue carrying out our rapid profitable growth strategy, which is based on profitable internal growth and strategic acquisitions, in order to achieve the targets we recently set: sales of at least US$ 2 billion with an EBITDA margin of over 22% in our core activities by the year 2020.”
About Frutarom:
Frutarom (LSE:FRUT) (TASE:FRUT) is a leading global company operating in the global flavors and natural fine ingredients markets. Frutarom has significant production and development centers on all six continents and markets and sells over 60,000 products to more than 27,000 customers in over 150 countries. Frutarom’s products are intended mainly for the food and beverages, flavor and fragrance extracts, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, health food, functional food, food additives and cosmetics industries.
Frutarom, which employs more than 4,800 people worldwide, has 2 main core activities:
- The Flavors Activity which develops, produces and markets flavor compounds and food systems;
- The Specialty Fine Ingredients Activity, which develops, produces and markets natural flavor extracts, natural functional food ingredients, natural pharma/nutraceutical extracts, natural algae-based biotechnical products, natural food colors, natural substances for food protection, aroma compounds, essential oils, unique citrus products, natural gums and resins. The Specialty Fine Ingredients products are sold primarily to the food and beverages, flavor and fragrance, pharmaceutical/nutraceutical, cosmetics and personal care industries.
Frutarom’s products are produced at its plants in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Israel, South Africa, China, India, Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, Chile, Brazil and New Zealand. The Company’s global marketing organization encompasses branches in Israel, the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Turkey, Brazil, Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, South Africa, China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and New Zealand. The Company also works through local agents and distributors throughout the world. For further information, please visit our website at: www.frutarom.com.