Birds Eye owner Nomad Foods plans a share placing to fund more deals
Nomad Foods, the owner of Birds Eye, yesterday said it plans to raise cash through a share placing to fund future acquisitions.
The London-listed company bought European frozen food business Iglo Group – which owns Birds Eye and Findus – in April in a €2.6bn (£1.86bn) deal.
“With this anchor investment Nomad is seeking to build an integrated group of best-in-class companies and brands within existing, as well as new, related categories,” said the firm.
“On top of exciting organic growth initiatives within Iglo, the company has a pipeline of potential strategic and complementary acquisitions.”
The placing of up to 15.4m shares, representing almost 10 per cent of Nomad’s existing share capital, will be open to existing and new institutional investors through an accelerated bookbuild.
UBS is leading the process, along with Barclays and Credit Suisse.
Nomad was founded by Noam Gottesman and Martin E Franklin. Gottesman is the founder and chief executive of investment firm TOMS Capital and co-founder of hedge fund giant GLG Partners. Franklin is the founder and executive chairman of Jarden Corporation, which has snapped up lots of well-known consumer brands.