By Atuna.com
The owner of Spanish tuna company, Conservas Garavilla, better known by its brand Isabel, plans to expand overseas to reach their new sales target of USD 491 million by 2014.
MCH Private Equity gained a significant stake in Garavilla in 2010 and since then, the investor has been making an impact on the company’s earnings. Sales (before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the first half of 2012 are approaching a record level USD 364 million – an increase of more than 50% from the company’s 2010 figures.
Currently, MCH has no plans to divest, despite increasing interest from trade buyers. Instead it will likely focus its growth in countries outside of Spain.
Garavilla’s brand Isabel is now also a leading brand in Ecuador, along with Van Camps and Real. Isabel is now the number two brand in Colombia, and it is showing an increasing presence in other Latin American countries such as Argentina, Chile and Peru. Other emerging markets are not left off the map as the company already has operations progressing in North Africa and the Middle East.
Isabel is the second largest, canned tuna brand in Spain – behind Calvo – and it is well positioned in the country’s mass and premium tuna markets. Last year, Garavilla acquired Conservas Cuca, a premium canner of fish and seafood products. Garavilla has been strongly concentrating on product innovation and developing new concepts such as its NaturFresh preservation process for added value tuna products.
Garavilla has four production plants in the world, two in Spain Mundaka (Vizcaya), El Grove (Pontevedra), one in Agadir, Morocco and it’s South American plant is in Manta Ecuador. It also operates a fleet of four tuna purse seiners from Manta Ecuador, which fish in the Eastern and Western Pacific Ocean.
MCH is in it expansion drive joined by several other major tuna industry players. Also Thai Union, Dongwon, and Bolton Group have been showing interest in further global expansion through recent takeovers.
