Swiss cocoa and chocolate products manufacturer Barry Callebaut has completed the acquisition of the cocoa ingredients business of Singapore-based Petra Foods for $860m.
This acquisition makes Barry Callebaut the world's leading cocoa and chocolate manufacturer and diversifies its global footprint to 50 factories on four continents.
Petra Foods' Cocoa Ingredients Division is a leading cocoa products supplier in Asia with a sales volume of 265,000t globally. The division has seven processing facilities in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Germany and France, with a total bean grinding capacity of 405,000t, and sales offices in Singapore, the Netherlands and the US. It has annual sales of CHF1.1bn ($1.17bn) and employs 1,700 people.
With this acquisition, Barry Callebaut is expanding its offering to industrial chocolate, outsourcing and gourmet customers as well as increasing its sales volume in the emerging markets.
The newly acquired business will be integrated into Global Cocoa and the process is expected to take 12 to 18 months. The combined entity, which employs more than 8,000 people, is estimated to have sales volume of 1.6 million tons and revenues of CHF6bn ($6.4bn) annually.
Barry Callebaut entered into an agreement to acquire the cocoa ingredients business of Petra Foods for $950m in December 2012.
Barry Callebaut CEO Juergen Steinemann said that the cocoa business acquired from Petra Foods is right at the core of Barry Callebaut, and will benefit it from the know-how of 1,800 highly motivated colleagues.
"It will support the further growth of our existing chocolate business. Being now also the largest global supplier of high-quality cocoa products, we will be able to capture opportunities in the fast-growing markets for specialty cocoa powders even better," Steinemann added.
Barry Callebaut is a producer of cocoa products with operations worldwide across the cocoa value chain.
