Italian multinational Lavazza is poised to become the biggest coffee company in France, according to information divulged to Reuters by two internal sources, in a deal valued at approximately €750 million to purchase Carte Noire.
The transaction, which will reportedly go through this month, will also make Lavazza the fourth-largest coffee company globally. Mondeléz International put Carte Noire on the international market a year ago, in February 2015.
The offer for Carte Noire was provisionally accepted by Mondeléz in July 2015. The snack-food giant decided to offload the coffee brand because of EU competition rules (its merger with D.E Master Blenders 1753 necessitated an asset offload of Carte Noire’s size by law).
BNP Paribas, Intesa Sanpaolo, Rabobank and UniCredit will be involved in financing the trade.
One of the two inside sources told Reuters, "The deal is worth around €750 million and is expected to be wrapped [up] by the end of February."
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
