Buyout agency Epiris has urge for food to swallow Princes Foods

A British buyout agency is hoping to triumph in a two-way battle for Princes Foods, one among Britain’s largest tinned produce producers.

Sky News understands that Epiris desires to safe a deal to purchase Princes inside days.

Epiris has been bidding in opposition to Italy’s Newlat in latest weeks, with each mentioned to stay within the operating.

Princes produces tinned fish and fruits, in addition to a variety of sentimental drinks and sunflower oil beneath the Flora model.

The public sale is the newest try by Mitsubishi Corporation, the large Japanese conglomerate which owns Princes, to dump the corporate.

An earlier course of carried out this yr failed to attract curiosity at a sufficiently enticing value.

A deal is anticipated to price the profitable bidder a minimum of £400m.

The firm has been owned by Mitsubishi since 1989, however traces its roots again to 1900.

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Its gross sales declined in 2022, however stays one of many UK’s largest meals teams, with revenues of near £1.5bn within the yr to the top of March 2022.

Bankers had beforehand urged {that a} break-up of the corporate was attainable, with its oils enterprise one candidate to be disposed of individually.

Neither Epiris nor Houlihan Lokey, the funding financial institution operating the public sale, responded to quite a lot of requests for remark.