Miura closes €350m agri-food fund, builds on fruit platform

Alessia Argentieri
30 October 2019

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Spanish GP Miura Private Equity has held a €350m first close for its new fund, Frutas, which will be dedicated to the agri-food sector, after less than three months on the road.

Unquote understands that the GP expects to hit the fund's €360m hard-cap in the next two weeks. Rede Partners advised Miura on the fundraise.

Investors
Frutas received commitments from pension funds, funds-of-funds, insurance companies, endowments and family offices. Around one third of its LPs are from the US, while the remainder is composed of European investors. Its LP base includes Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Schroder Adveq, among others.

Investments
The fund will target companies operating in the agri-food business based across Europe, Latin America, South Africa and the US, generating revenues in the €50-150m range.

The GP intends to use Frutas to support the growth and consolidation of its portfolio company Citri&Co by pursuing a buy-and-build strategy and creating a vertically integrated platform specialising in fruit production.

The fund plans to make around 10 deals and has already backed Citri&Co's acquisition of Frutas Esther, which specialises in producing and distributing peaches, plums, apricots, grapes and berries. The GP invested in the company alongside both companies' founding families and management teams.

Frutas Esther was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Abarán, in the Murcia province, with an additional presence in Huelva and La Coruña, Spain, and in Canterbury, UK. It operates two production facilities, employs 700 people and exports its products in the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy, South Africa and Switzerland. Unquote understands that it generated EBITDA in excess of €7m from revenues of around €75m in 2018.

Following this add-on, Citri&Co expects to reach an EBITDA margin of around 10% from revenues of €500m in 2019. The combined group will operate 11 packaging plants and generate an annual production of around 500,000 tonnes of citrus fruit from 8,000 hectares of land.

To finance the acquisition of Frutas Esther, Miura deployed capital from both its third fund and new vehicle Frutas. This is the fourth deal inked by Miura Fund III, which closed on €330m in 2018 and targets companies based in the Iberian Peninsula with sales above €25m and EBITDA of more than €3m. The vehicle has been around 33% deployed so far, Unquote understands.

Citri&Co was originally acquired by Miura via its second fund, Miura Fund II, a €200m vehicle closed in 2014 and now fully deployed. The GP has now transferred its existing interest in Citri&Co from this vehicle to Miura Fund III with the aim of further investment in the business. The GP plans to make four or five additional bolt-ons in the coming years and is already considering some potential targets, Unquote understands.

Citri&Co was established by Miura following the merger of two citrus fruit producers: Martinavarro and Rio Tinto. The GP bought a 25% stake in Martinavarro in July 2016, while the company's founding families and the management team maintained a controlling stake. Subsequently, the GP bought Rio Tinto in July 2017 and merged the two businesses in Citri&Co.

More recently, Citri&Co acquired citrus fruit producer Perales & Ferrer in August 2018 from the company's founder, Joaquín Perales, who reinvested in the business.

People
Miura Private Equity – Jordi Alegre (partner).