Stamford Law seals Petra Foods' deal with a Zurich-based company in 10 days

Petra Foods sells one of the world's largest cocoa ingredient suppliers to Barry Callebaut for a whopping US$950m.

Stamford Law is advising SGX Mainboard-listed Petra Foods Limited in respect of its sale of its cocoa ingredients division to Swiss Exchange-listed Barry Callebaut, for a cash consideration of approximately US$950 million. 

Petra Foods’ cocoa ingredients division is one of the world’s largest suppliers of cocoa ingredients to the food and beverage industry and comprises of six cocoa ingredients processing facilities (located in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico and Germany) and one cocoa butter factory (located in France).

Zurich-based Barry Callebaut is listed on the Swiss Exchange and is the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products. It reported third-party sales revenue of CHF4.83 billion in 2011/12 and has approximately 6,100 employees in 30 countries. The acquisition will increase Barry Callebaut’s presence in the global cocoa ingredients market.

The sale is subject to Petra Foods’ shareholder approval, regulatory approvals as well as pre-completion restructuring of Petra Foods’ cocoa ingredients business in Indonesia and Philippines.

Partner Yap Wai Ming led the transaction and he shared with us his thoughts on this deal:

“The deal is interesting because of the multi-jurisdictional challenges in terms of anti-trust competition issues and the carving out territories in the non-compete section between the cocoa ingredients business and the branded consumer division which has some overlap. The deal was challenging due to the multi bidders presenting different perspectives of their requirements and with Barry Callebaut being able to come up to speed very quickly to seal the deal in an intense 10 days of negotiation.”