Endless's Bright Blue Foods buys Greencore's cakes division

Following the deal, the newly consolidated Bright Blue Foods group will double in size, according to a statement. It will have a turnover of around £140m with 2,000 employees across five sites. The newly acquired division will be rebranded as BBF Hull.

The transaction comes almost two and a half years after Endless acquired Bright Blue Foods from NBGI Private Equity with capital drawn from from its fourth vehicle, which held a first and final close in December 2014 on £525m.

Company
Greencore was founded in 1991 following the privatisation of Irish Sugar. The sale of the Hull division marks an exit for the convenience food producer from the UK cakes and desserts sector. The group generated a turnover of £2.3bn in the year ending September 2017, with adjusted EBITDA of £190m, according to publicly available documents. However, the group said "challenging trading conditions in the cakes and desserts businesses" led to the decision to divest division.

People
Endless – James Woolley (partner); Richard Harrison (investment director); Lee Abbott (investment manager).
Bright Blue Foods – Jonathan Lill (CEO).

Advisers
Equity – Addleshaw Goddard, Duncan Wilson, Katie Parker, Dominic McLean, Rebekah Fisher (legal); Forbes Solicitors, Emma Swan (legal); KPMG, Steven Heath, Nilesh Patel (tax).
Vendor – Eversheds Sutherland, Amanda Partland, Jonathan Wharam (legal); Stamford Partners, Rob Iseman, Michael Bunting (corporate finance).
Management – Bond Dickinson, Simon Pilling, James Cook (legal).

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• Topics
• Portfolio management
• UK / Ireland
• Consumer
• United Kingdom
• Endless
• Build-up
• Addleshaw Goddard
• KPMG
• Eversheds