MCVITIE’S £3.6BN MARKET FLOAT

THE owner of McVitie’s biscuits and Jacob’s crackers is to create a food giant worth £3.6bn, with plans to float on the London Stock Market by 2020.

Yildiz Holding is launching a new global confectionery and biscuits company called Pladis by combining United Biscuits, Godiva Chocolatier, Ulker and DeMet’s Candy Company.

Part of the expansion plan is to sell McVitie’s products in new countries.

Pladis boss Cema Karakas said: ‘The idea of bringing these businesses together came right before we purchased United Biscuits. We have been the fastest growing confectionery and biscuit maker for several years.

‘Now we want to strengthen this growth trajectory and we thought it would be best done by marrying all of the brands into a single company.’

The newly-combined group will use its distribution network to bolster McVitie’s presence in America and push it into the Middle East, Turkey, China, Australia and sub-Saharan Africa.

It said the moves were part of wider ambitions to become the number one player in the Middle East by 2020 and the second biggest company within its field in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Karakas said the firm would need to prove its growth strategy is working and was successfully expanding products into new global markets before it could embark on an initial public offering. A Pladis spokesman said: ‘As one global family, we can be more agile, allowing us to innovate around our products and develop more brand synergies, which are already benefiting our business.’

The combination of the four firms will create a food industry heavyweight with 36 factories in 13 countries, employing 26,000 people, with 5,000 in the UK.

United Biscuits brands include McVitie’s, Jacob’s, Go Ahead and Carr’s. The company was bought by Yildiz Holding in November 2014.