Baring acquires Lion Capital’s 40% stake in Weetabix

The stake was previously held by London-based GP Lion Capital, with a sale first reported in April this year. According to reports at the time, the transaction valued Weetabix at £1.28bn and would see Lion exit its stake to China's Bright Food, which would in turn sell it to Baring.

Baring's acquisition marks the end of an 11-year saga for Lion, which took Weetabix private in a £642m deal in 2004. The full exit is likely to have generated a total of around 5x money for the private equity outfit.

Lion first partially exited Weetabix in May 2012, when it sold an initial 60% stake to Bright Food, valuing the company at £1.2bn. The sale of the remaining stake to Bright Food was at the time expected to take place two or three years after the first sell-down.

Company
Weetabix is a Kettering-based breakfast cereal producer with brands that include Alpen, Weetabix, Weetos and Ready Brek. It exports its products to 87 countries worldwide and employs 1,800 people.

The company was founded in 1932 and has been run by the George family since before World War II. The largest single shareholder prior to Lion's acquisition in 2002 was Gardner Russo, a US wealth management company, which owned a 14.5% stake. The George family owned a combined 20% of the business.

People
Jean Eric Salata is the founder and CEO of Baring Asia. Yongjie Lv is the chairman of Bright Food. Giles Turrell is the CEO of Weetabix.

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• Topics
• UK / Ireland
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Exits
• Lion Capital
• Lion Capital (formerly Hicks Muse)
• Baring Private Equity Partners