US tycoons with taste for fish fingers
HEDGE fund manager Noam Gottesman is more likely to be found rubbing shoulders with stars such as Beyonce than eating a fishfinger sandwich in front of the TV.
But along with two other US tycoons, he is making a multibillion-pound bet on the public’s taste for frozen foods and ready meals.
Gottesman and consumer goods expert Martin Franklin last year listed an investment vehicle, Nomad, in London, with backing from Wall Street investor Bill Ackman.
In April it paid £1.9bn to buy Birds Eye owner Iglo Foods from private equity group Permira and is now in talks to buy the continental European business of Findus Group.
The men trying to build the frozen food empire are some of New York’s best known investors. Gottesman is an Israeli-American businessman who co-founded hedge fund manager GLG Partners, which was sold for £1bn to Man Group in 2010. Stars Beyonce and Jay Z attended his wedding to retailer Bianca Duenas and he once dated actress Lucy Liu, pictured left.
Martin Franklin is the son of Sir Roland Franklin, a merchant banker. Franklin junior followed his father into corporate dealmaking, building up Florida-based jar-maker Jarden into a consumer-goods empire valued at about £7bn with 120 brands and finds time to run marathons.
Ackman is worth £720m, according to Forbes magazine. He founded and runs Pershing Square Capital Management which has taken nearly 22pc in Nomad.
Nomad confirmed yesterday that it is in talks with the owners of Findus Group, private equity group Lion Capital, JPMorgan Chase, and Highbridge Capital, to buy its European businesses.
Findus, which also owns UK-based Young’s Seafood business, which is not part of the Nomad talks, was bought by Lion in 2008 in a deal worth £1.1bn.
Nestle owned the group until 2000 when it was sold to a number of pri- vate equity businesses. The European operations include France, Spain and Scandinavia.
Iglo already owns the Findus brand in Italy.
The potential merger of Iglo and Findus in Europe will create a food group that sells everything from frozen peas and vegetables to microwavable lasagnes and fish pies across the continent.
Nomad eventually plans to rival consumer goods giants Unilever or Nestle. It raised around £320m in a float when it was founded in April last year and another £500m in a private placement to institutional investors at the time of announcing the Iglo deal.
Its shares are currently suspended while it completes the Iglo takeover. It is seeking readmission in London while also planning to list on the New York Stock Exchange.