Plum Baby Ltd (United Kingdom) - Nov 2007

unquote
01 November 2007

Tweet
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google plus
Send to

Noble Fund Managers Private Equity has led a £2m development capital funding round for Plum Baby Ltd, an organic baby food business. The investment represents the first institutional funding for the company and sees Noble take a significant minority stake in the company. Noble’s commitment is to be followed by an additional £400,000 provided by Octopus Ventures. Noble was introduced to Plum Baby by Nucleus Capital and prevailed in a competitive process. The speed and deliverability Noble offered – it completed in seven weeks – helped it to win the deal. The new capital will be used for new product development and for repayment of debt. Noble does not envisage the company requiring further funding rounds. Noble was attracted to Plum Baby’s strong brand, excellent distribution networks and driven team. In less than two years’ trading, Plum Baby has penetrated the major UK retailers and established the Plum Baby brand as a pre-eminent baby food brand.

Company

Alresford-based Plum Baby was founded in 2004. Its organic baby food is sold in retailers including Boots, Ocado.com, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose. After less than two years’ trading it has a 4% share of the baby meals market. In 2007 it expects to achieve sales of £5m. It employs 11 staff.

People

Douglas Lawson led the deal for Noble with support from Stephane Mery and Gerard Tardy. Octopus Ventures’ investment is being led by Alex Macpherson. Susie Willis is the founder of Plum Baby. Following the deal, Patrick Cairns joins the company as its CEO. He previously worked at Unilever.

Advisers

Equity - Edinburgh Corporate, Martin Quinn (Legal)Equity - PKF, Andrew Richardson, Cairg Love, Graeme Cassells (Financial Due Diligence)Management - Grant Thornton, Julian Sheppard (Corporate Finance)Management - Nucleus Capital, (Corporate Finance)Management - Wilsons, Stephen Whitmore (Legal)

Sourced from: UK & Ireland unquote" 358 (Dec 2007)