Iconic fruit and vege biz SPC launches targeted capital raise
Four years after being sold by Coca-Cola Amatil, fruit and vegetable processor SPC Global has put a capital raise in the market, but there’s a catch: investors must be from the Goulburn Valley.
The 100-year-old company, which is behind products like baked beans and spaghetti, Ardmona canned tomatoes and Goulburn Valley fruit, is seeking to raise up to $20 million from local investors who are residents of the region, located about 200 kilometres north of Melbourne in central Victoria.
New SPC Boss Neil Brimacombe. Eamon Gallagher
Proceeds will be used to support growth initiatives in Australia and internationally and for future M&A activity. SPC is seeking to diversify its product offering, venture into new markets and strengthen its local presence.
“SPC started in the Goulburn Valley by shareholders from the Goulburn Valley in 1917,” SPC Global chair Hussein Rifai told Street Talk.
“The shareholders remained primarily from the Goulburn Valley until
the company was bought by Coca-Cola Amatil in 2005. We want to give the original shareholders’ and their family the opportunity to become shareholders again.”
Prospective investors are expected to tip in alongside SPC’s existing shareholders, South Australian billionaire Shahin family and AMIST Super who participated into the company’s $111 million capital raise in January 2022.
Shepparton Partners Collective, a joint venture between Sydney-based boutique investment house Perma Funds Management and The Eights, a Sydney-based private equity firm, bought SPC from Coca-Cola Amatil for $40 million in 2019 – less than a 10th of the $490 million CCA paid for it in 2005.
They hoped to restore SPC to profitability and boost production to full capacity by developing new products, distribution channels and overseas markets. The business has struggled, partly because of competition from supermarket home brands.
SPC returned a consolidated profit after tax of $24 million in 2021-22 after an $11.8 million loss the year before. It has yet to release its results for this year, but it is understood the business has been hit hard after losing roughly 18,000 tonnes of product in floods that ravaged Victoria late last year.
The company settled a legal dispute with its former chief executive Robert Giles in August over unpaid wages and annual leave.
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