(Corrects shareholding in paragraph 13, Mitsubishi is no longer a shareholder, Angelo Mastrolia controls 68% not 75%)
MILAN (Reuters) -Carrefour, Europe’s biggest food retailer, has agreed to sell its Italian business to local company NewPrinces.
WHAT DOES NEWPRINCES DO?
NewPrinces, formerly known as Newlat, manufactures products such as pasta, milk, bakery and dairy products, and canned foods.
They are sold under NewPrinces’ own brands, such as Giglio and Delverde, or produced for third parties and the private label market.
Its main markets are the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany.
HOW DID IT GROW?
The company was founded by Italian entrepreneur Angelo Mastrolia, who started out with a small milk business in the southern city of Salerno.
It has grown mainly through acquisitions, often buying troubled assets from large multinational groups.
The initial jump in size came with the acquisition of Newlat from bankrupt Italian food and dairy group Parmalat for a token 1 euro.
In 2019 it listed in Milan. Less than a year later it bought Italian dairy group Centrale del Latte d’Italia.
The next big jump was last year’s acquisition of UK food company Princes from Mitsubishi for 700 million pounds ($941 million), which led to a rebranding of the group as NewPrinces.
Earlier this year, it reached an agreement to buy a plant in northern Italy from spirits group Diageo.
This month, NewPrinces agreed to buy Kraft Heinz’s Italian infant and speciality businesses, including the Plasmon brand, for an enterprise value of 120 million euros.
The company has plans for more acquisitions and a potential UK listing of its food manufacturing division, though analysts have raised concerns about its debt levels and the challenges of integrating the different businesses.
WHO OWNS NEWPRINCES?
Angelo Mastrolia controls the company with a 68% of voting rights, according to Italian market watchdog Consob’s website.
Angelo’s son Giuseppe Mastrolia is chief executive and his daughter Benedetta is head of investor relations.
HOW BIG IS IT?
The Princes acquisition lifted 2024 group revenue to 2.8 billion euros, from 793 million euros in 2023, for an adjusted core profit of 195 million euros.
Carrefour Italia, which counts 1,027 stores in Italy, reported net sales of 3.74 billion euros last year, according to slides published on the NewPrinces website.
NewPrinces management expects the group to surpass 7 billion euros in revenue by the end of 2026.
($1 = 0.7442 pounds)
(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin. Editing by Valentina Za and Mark Potter)
