(updates previous).
Italian premium pasta maker
Pastificio Lucio Garofalo announced Wednesday it signed a
preliminary agreement to sell a majority 52% stake to the
listed, Spanish multinational Ebro Foods for a total investment
of 62 million euros.
Ebro Foods is active in the rice, pasta, and condiment
sectors, and quoted on the Madrid stock exchange.
Garofalo called Ebro Foods an industrial partner with a
solid background with which to grow on the basis of a common
vision that will "preserve the identity of the company and the
product, which owe their distinctive and differentiating traits
to the leadership, the workers, as well as the production site".
News of the deal sparked immediate outcry from Italian
agrifood association Coldiretti as the latest in a growing tide
of encroachment on Italian food producers.
"With the sale of Garofalo pasta, the Spanish have exceeded
10 billion euros worth of historic Italian agrifood brands that
have passed into foreigners' hands since the beginning of the
(financial) crisis," said Coldiretti President Roberto Moncalvo,
speaking to roughly 10,000 farmers gathered at a meeting near
Florence.
"We are facing an escalation of the Spanish presence in
Italy with the passage of 25% of Riso Scotti (Italian rice) into
the hands of the same Spanish food multinational Ebro Food after
Barcellona's Gruppo Agroalimen rose to 75 % of ownership in Star
(Italian boullion producer)," Moncalvo continued.
Moncalvi complained that Italy's Fiorucci hams had also
been bought by Spanish meats group Campofrio..
Garofalo pasta Chief Executive Massimo Menna countered that
the Ebro takeover "represents value for the Italian System and
should not be read as a 'piece of Italy that is going away'".
"Our company is healthy and strong, and this has put us in
an optimal position to seize the best opportunities for growth,"
Menna said.
"We chose Garofalo for the quality of its product, for the
excellent results it has achieved over time and for its people
who, in the last 15 years in particular, have enabled to give
life to an extraordinary story and with whom we have found a
perfect personal and professional understanding," said Ebro
Foods Chief Executive Antonio Hernandez Callejas.
Pasta Garofalo has over 100 years of history. The Menna
family have been shareholders since 1952, and gained control of
the company in 1997.
Pasta Garofalo has concentrated on the premium segment since
2002, and has risen from a turnover of 30 million euros in 2002
to more than 134 million in 2013.
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