TreeHouse Foods completes Associated Brands takeover

TreeHouse Foods, a US-based food manufacturer, has completed its acquisition of Canadian food manufacturer Associated Brands from private equity firm TorQuest Partners and other shareholders for C$187m ($180m) in cash.

Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Associated Brands is engaged in the manufacture of dry packaged food products such as flavoured drink mixes, speciality tea, hot chocolate drinks, dessert mixes, soups, bouillon, side dishes, sweeteners and oatmeal as well as nutritional and weight management products.

The company employs 650 staff across its three production facilities in Delta, British Columbia, Canada; Medina, New York, US; and Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

For the year ending 30 June 2013, Associated Brands reported revenues of $200m.

The acquisition adds a line of speciality tea products to TreeHouse’s single serve coffee business and is expected to enable the company to reinforce its retail presence in private label dry grocery.

TreeHouse Foods and TorQuest Partners accounced the acquisition agreement in August this year.

TreeHouse chairman, president and CEO Sam K Reed said at the time that Associated Brands has a strong North American presence in many dry mix categories that are complementary to TreeHouse, including powdered drinks, oatmeal and side dishes.

"Through Associated Brands, we will also enter the large and growing speciality tea category," Reed added.

The company expects the deal to be modestly accretive to earnings in 2013 and add about $0.14 to $0.16 in EPS in 2014.

Wells Fargo Securities provided financial advisory services to TreeHouse, while BMO Capital Markets acted as financial advisor to Associated Brands and TorQuest Partners.