Symrise Bids to Acquire French Food Ingredient Maker Diana

Germany's Symrise, the world's fourth largest flavours and fragrances manufacturer, has made a binding offer to acquire French food ingredient maker Diana Group in a deal that would expand its activities into the pet food market.

Symrise did not disclose the exact purchase price, saying only that it would "invest" around €1.3 billion ($1.8 billion) to buy all the shares in Kerisper, the holding for Diana Group, owned by the private equity firm Ardian.

Symrise said it had already secured the bridge financing through a mixture of debt and equity.

In 2013, Diana had sales of around €425 million and an EBITDA margin of around 21%, Symrise said.

Symrise CEO Heinz Jürgen Bertram said the company believes a multiple of around 14 times the French company's 2013 EBITDA represents an attractive valuation, given the quality of products and customer base, its high-margin characteristics, and the future growth prospects of the business.

In March, the news agency Reuters cited sources as saying that Diana Group had attracted bids worth more than €1.2 billion including debt from Symrise and Japan's Ajinomoto, with private equity firms firms CVC Capital Partners , Euroazeo and Pamplona also in the race.

Symrise said Diana, a leading supplier to the food, pet food, nutraceutical, aquaculture and cosmetics industries, would enable it to significantly expand its position in the flavour and nutrition markets and broaden its activities into the pet food markets.

The German company has sought growth partly via acquisitions, recently raising its stake in the Swedish probiotics specialist Probi.