Accent hands over control of Candyking to CEO

The deal sees the GP relinquish the entirety of its ownership stake held in the Accent Equity 2008 fund, which was acquired in 2007 through a management buyout.

Candyking will be taken over by Dani Evanoff, the company's CEO since June 2016 when he took over from Fredrik van Oelreich amid poor financial performance. The company has seen sales and EBITDA dropping for nearly two years.

Accent had initially planned an exit in 2013 through the public market, but its planned IPO was withdrawn in December 2013 after fires burned through two Candyking production facilities and created uncertainty around the company. In January 2014, the company instead placed a SEK 750m four-year senior secured high-yield bond on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm to finance its continued growth.

Following the halted IPO, Candyking withdrew from several central European markets considered unprofitable and began restructuring plans.

Later that year, Accent converted Candyking shareholder loans to preferred stock amid efforts to restructure the company, having bought out EQT, which held a 15% stake through a mezzanine loan.

Previous funding
Accent tapped its Accent Equity 2008 fund to acquire Candyking from Finnish parent group Fazer for around SEK 1bn in December 2007. The deal was financed with a mezzanine facility provided by EQT Expansion Capital 1, giving the GP a 15% stake. EQT sold its stake to Accent in May 2014.

Company
Candyking was established in Sweden in 1984 as Karamellkungen. The company sells pick-and-mix confectionery through concessions in retail stores and other outlets.

According to publicly available information, Candyking generated SEK 964.2m of net sales from January to September 2016, with underlying EBITDA of SEK 40.4m – down from SEK 1.128bn and SEK 62.4m over the same period in 2015.

People
Candyking – Dani Evanoff (CEO).

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• Topics
• Exits
• Consumer
• Nordics
• Accent Equity Partners
• EQT
• Sweden