Greencore sells US business for $1bn
DUBLIN: Greencore Group, Britain’s biggest sandwich maker, on Monday said it had sold its US business for just over $1 billion, two years after it made a major acquisition in a bid to transform its US operations.
Greencore’s US business produces sandwiches, salads, sushi and deserts for customers including Starbucks and the 7-Eleven convenience store.
In 2016 it purchased Illinoisbased Peacock, which produces frozen breakfast sandwiches, snack kits for children and salad packs, among other items, for $747.5 million.
Greencore said in a statement it had agreed to sell its US business to Hearthside Food Solutions for $1.075 billion.
It said it would distribute £509 million in SEOUL: Korean Air Lines Co Ltd Chairman Cho Yang-ho was indicted on Monday on charges including embezzlement and breach of trust, South Korean prosecutors said, adding to a string of woes at the country’s biggest airline group.
Cho is the latest head of a big business group, or chaebol, to face legal challenges in South Korea since President Moon Jae-in took office in 2017 with a pledge to curb the excessive power of family-owned conglomerates and improve their governance.
Earlier this month, an appeals court found the chairman of retail-tochemicals conglomerate Lotte Group, Shin Dong-bin, guilty of charges including bribery and breach of trust for his role in an influence-peddling scandal that led to the ouster of the country’s former president, Park Geun-hye.
Samsung Group’s de facto leader Jay Y Lee was also convicted of corruption in the same bribery scandal. Both Lee and Shin are currently awaiting rulings from the country’s top court after their jail terms were suspended by a lower court.
A Seoul prosecutors’ office on Monday said Cho took 19.6 billion won (£12.9 million) commission from cash to shareholders and shift its full focus to developing its British business. “We have always had a firm conviction on the underlying value and growth prospects of our US business and believe that this offer fully reflects that,” Chief Executive Patrick Coveney said. “The proposed transaction would enhance our strategic and financial flexibility, which would allow us to build on our industry-leading position in our core UK market whilst also taking advantage of emerging organic and inorganic growth opportunities,” he said. Greencore said it hoped the deal would be completed by late November and said it would have an extraordinary general meeting to vote on it on November 7.