Patties Foods will sell its two Victorian manufacturing plants in a sale-and-leaseback offering, it announced this week. It anticipates raising around $130 million from the sales.
Patties Foods CEO Paul Hitchcock said the decision would allow the company to invest in future growth. “We are not in the business of property investment – we can save that for long term property investors,” Hitchcock said.
The company will market the land and buildings for sale in February 2021, and in return take on 30-year leases for both the Bairnsdale and Packenham sites.
Parent company Australasian Foods Holdco is a foreign owned private company through Pacific Equity Partners and manufactures chilled and frozen food products. It employs around 670 people in Australia and New Zealand. In 2020, its revenue was US$259.6 million.
In Food & Drink Business’ Top 100 Food & Drink Companies for 2019, Australasian Foods jumped from #89 to #68 with the acquisition of Boscastle Pastries Foods.
Other brands in the business include Four ’n Twenty, Herbert Adams, Nanna’s, Ruffie Rustic Foods, New Zealand brand Leader.
Patties has been expanding into vegetarian and plant-based markets with new product ranges across all brands with Ruffie Rustic Foods the headliner.
