Livingstone Crowns Year with Pasta King Sale
November 2009
Livingstone Partners announced that Pasta King (UK) Ltd (‘Pasta King’) has been sold to a management buy-in team backed by NBGI Private Equity (‘NBGI’) for £13m. Pasta King’s shareholders were advised by Patrick Groarke and Tom Phipps from Livingstone’s Consumer Team. This is the second private equity backed food sector deal that Livingstone has completed within a four month period, following the management buy-in, buy-out of TSC Foods in July backed by Key Capital Partners.
Pasta King, which is based in Newton Abbot, Devon, provides meal solutions comprising mostly pasta with fresh sauces. The meals are served hot from pasta bars that are loaned to the Company’s customer base. As a healthy and tasty food offering, Pasta King has become very popular in secondary schools nationwide and satisfies Governmental standards on salt, fat, fibre and vegetable content that were mandatorily imposed on all food served in schools from September 2009. Pasta King provides a quick, convenient, off-the-shelf solution for caterers faced with an ever narrowing choice of menu options to offer to students.
In addition to its leading position in the UK secondary school market, Pasta King has a growing presence in universities, business and industry and the leisure sectors. It has also recently received approval by the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency for supply into hospitals and other primary healthcare trust establishments.
NBGI Private Equity (‘NBGI’) is backing Howard Farquhar, Managing Director, who previously led the successful development of sandwich manufacturer Brambles. Livingstone identified NBGI and Howard as suitable partners for Pasta King on behalf of Matrix Private Equity and the management shareholders.
Bob Henry, of Matrix PE, said: ”We are extremely pleased with the exit of Pasta King, generating a return of 3.2 times money on the original investment of £1.8m. Livingstone Partners’ unrivalled knowledge of the food sector was extremely important to getting this deal away.”
Tom Phipps, director at Livingstone, commented: “Following on from TSC Foods, the sale of Pasta King highlights our ability to complete deals in difficult markets and demonstrates that businesses in the food sector with the right fundamentals continue to appeal to private equity and attract bank support. We are extremely pleased to have been able to bring all of these component parts together to create a successful exit for the shareholders of Pasta King.”
For further information contact:
Patrick Groarke
T: +44 20 7484 4707
E: groarke@livingstonepartners.co.uk
Tom Phipps
T: +44 20 7484 4717
E: phipps@livingstonepartners.co.uk
