In the second half of the year, in all likelihood, and after regulatory approval has been obtained, the completion of the €130 million acquisition of Barba Stathis by Ideal Holding is expected, as estimated during a conference call with analysts by the listed company’s Chairman K. Lambros Papaconstantinou.

He said the acquisition was based on detailed calculations based on Barba Stathis’ performance in the 12 months to June 2024 and its performance forecasts to the end of the year. He said, the €166 million enterprise value that Ideal Holdings’ calculations for Barba Stathis arrived at represents almost 12 times (p11.8) the company’s adjusted EBITDA, which is broadly in the range of the significant deals that have been done in the industry in recent years. To this end, he also presented a table of past significant acquisitions made in the food sector showing that all of them were made at a multiple of at least 10 times EBITDA (e.g. CVC Vivartia) reaching up to 22 times (e.g. Upfield Arivia).

As Papaconstantinou stressed, the listed company will decide by April how to proceed with the acquisition, given that it has the means and the cash (i.e. a total of 185 million euros) to do it on its own. However, it appeared from his statement that around 30% of the capital will be raised from bank financing to increase the leverage ratios of the listed company. “It is not imperative to look at this now,” he said.