Mergers & Acquisitions
Tailored M&A advice to create and maximise shareholder value
We advised on the sale of Creed Foodservice to Kitwave Group plc
Our Deal advisory team is delighted to announce that it has advised on the successful sale of Creed Catering Supplies Limited (“Creed”), a market leading independent family food wholesaler, to Kitwave Group Plc (“Kitwave”). The sale is expected to expand Kitwave’s presence significantly in the HORECA food distribution market.
Creed, originally founded in 1972, is one of the UK’s leading independent, family-owned foodservice wholesalers, specialising in providing a comprehensive range of products and services to caterers and chefs across the UK, including Grocery, Frozen, Chilled, Creed Fresh Produce, Creed Family Butchers, Beverages, Alcohol and Non-food categories.
From their three distribution centres based in Gloucestershire, Derbyshire, and Buckinghamshire, Creed’s route network stretches across the country making them a national foodservice distributor in ‘out of home’ markets including care, education, hospitality and destination leisure.
Forvis Mazars acted as lead financial advisor on the deal and supported in delivering a full auction process, offer negotiation, and negotiating net debt and normalised working capital adjustments to deliver the best value for the shareholders, whilst not losing sight of finding the ‘right’ owner for the business.
Creed was advised on the sale by a multi-service line team from Forvis Mazars, led by Dave Hilton, Janice Clement-Smith, Rhys Norman, Luke Seymour and Prerak Shah from Deal advisory, supported by Sandy Cowan and Alex Kingston from SPA advisory, Ian Goodwin, Andrew Spence and Jamie Rhodes from Tax, and Adrian Gill and Guy Harris from Management consulting. John Workman and Kathryn King from BPE’s Corporate team were the legal advisors on the deal.
Dave Hilton, M&A Partner, said: “The shareholders have built a brilliant business predicated by exceptional customer service with a focus on developing its people all the way through the business. A key objective was to align these strong values with the right buyer, and it was apparent that the team at Kitwave shared this vision and culture, along with a passion for exemplary customer service – providing a great home for the Creed journey to continue and to support its people and customers.”
Chris Creed, CEO and former Shareholder of Creed said: “We chose Forvis Mazars to represent us as our lead financial advisor because of their strong credentials and their personable approach. We are particularly indebted to the Forvis Mazars team for their diligence, overall process management, and careful advice on complex elements of the deal structure which helped to guide the deal towards a successful outcome.”
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