Agropur completes acquisition of Davisco Foods

Canadian dairy cooperative Agropur Cooperative has completed the acquisition of Davisco Foods International for an undisclosed sum.

To finance the acquisition, Agropur tapped into existing cash resources and new credit facilities fully underwritten by the co-lead arrangers and joint bookrunners Desjardins Capital Markets, BMO Capital Markets and Rabobank.

As part of the deal, Agropur will acquire Davisco’s three cheese processing facilities in Le Sueur, Jerome (Idaho) and Lake Norden (South Dakota) in the US.

The acquisition also includes an ingredients facility in Nicollet, a Friendly Confines Cheese Shoppe in Le Sueur and sales offices at Eden Prairie in Minnesota, Shanghai in China, Singapore and Geneva in Switzerland.

Distribution centres located in Rotterdam, Netherlands and Tianjin, China, are also part of the deal.

Agropur expects its global milk intake to increase by 50% with this deal, besides doubling its processing operations in the US.

Davisco processes around 1.7 billion litres of milk every year, and produces about 170 million kg of cheese and 80 million kg of whey ingredients annually.