Hong Kong’s Chevalier targets Catalyst-backed Moraitis – report

Chevalier, which has interests across the food and beverage, property, insurance, travel and engineering industries, is looking buy part of the 50% stake in the business held by the Moraitis family and part of Catalyst's 49% holding, The Australian Financial Review reported. Mercer Mooney, a Western Australia-based fruit and vegetable operation, owns the remaining 1%, having been acquired by Moraitis in 2007.

Catalyst acquired its holding from the Moraitis family for around $53 million in 2006. Over the last five years, the company's revenue has more than doubled, reaching A$517 million ($522 million) for the 12 months ended June 2011. Moraitis has been in operation for 55 years and supplies leading Australian supermarket chains such as Woolworths.

Catalyst put its holding on the block last year, hiring Ernst & Young to explore sale options. Food assets - notably fresh produce - are increasingly attractive to private equity firms in part due to potential trade sale exits to Asian corporates looking to satisfy rising domestic demand.

Earlier this year, Wolseley Private Equity exited Freshmax, a fruit and vegetable business that covers Australia and New Zealand, to Maui Capital. Brendan Hill, a director at Wolseley told AVCJ that a broad range of trade and private equity players expressed an interest in the asset. Exports account for about 15% of Freshmax's total sales, two-thirds of which are earmarked for Asia.

Several of the prospective investors in Freshmax had already lost out on two other deals in the fruit and vegetable space as Paine & Partners won the race for a 50% stake in Costa Group, Australia's largest fruit and vegetable producer, and Germany's BayWa completed the acquisition of New Zealand fresh produce specialist Turners & Growers.

Interest in fresh produce stretches into the meat space, with Affinity Equity Partners completing buyouts of New Zealand-based Tegal Foods, a significant chicken producer and distributor, and Australian deli meats producer Primo Smallgoods.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Exits
• Consumer
• Greater China
• Catalyst Investment Managers
• Hong Kong (China)
• China
• Consumer
• Australia