SPAIN—Arta Capital has acquired 37.4% minority interest in Spanish nuts and snacks supplier Facundo Group from the Villagra family.
Vicente Facundo Villagrá will continue as executive president of the company and the Villagrá family will remain as a reference shareholder.
The transaction amounts to US$22.9million, according to a notice posted with Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
Arta was set up by Corporación Financiera Alba, a financial holding company of publicly-listed Alba (Grupo March), a family-owned investment bank headquartered in Palma.
The private equity firm has US$842 million under management through its two investment vehicles (Artá Fund I and Artá Fund II) focused on investing in family-owned Iberian companies.
Arta has indirectly purchased the holding through its Deyá Capital fund by participating in an undisclosed capital injection in Disfasa, a company under the Villada-based Facundo Group.
Founded in Palencia in 1944 by Facundo Blanco and María Dolores de la Fuente, the company is dedicated to the manufacture, marketing and distribution of nuts, appetizers and healthy snacks, under its Facundo, Chaskis and Cuori brands.
The entry of Artá comes to support a new growth phase of the company, focused on the development of its production capacity and the launch of new products.
It has two production centers in Spain. One is located in Villada (Palencia), dedicated to the production of sunflower seeds in its different varieties (toasted, raw, with salt water and without salt) and nuts.
The other is in Villamuriel de Cerrato (Palencia) and specializes in the production of crisps and extruded corn and also owns nuts and potato chips supplier Los Girasoles.
The company recorded a turnover of US$18.4 million in 2021, which represented an increase of 7.7% from 2020. In addition, the result before taxes for the year showed a profit of US$ 3.7 million, up 3.85% from the year before.
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