Abraaj ups bid for baked goods manufacturer

The Abraaj Group, the growth market private equity firm, has raised its bid for BiscoMisr, a listed Egyptian baked goods manufacturer to E£909.65 million ($127.18 million;€102.56 million).

The bid increase was submitted to the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) after Kelloggs, the US food company, increased its bid above Abraaj’s original offer of E£73.91 a share last week.

The private equity group is bidding for a minimum of 51 percent of share capital to gain a controlling stake in the company. The first bid was submitted on November 19 and is part of a more general trend for Abraaj to target food and agriculture firms.

Earlier this month it acquired the Wine Connection Group, a Southeast Asian wine company and last month it acquired a majority stake in Libstar Consumer Holdings, a South African food manufacturer. In January it acquired Yorsan, a Turkish dairy product brand. In the purer agriculture sector, it also owns Thimar, an herb producer in Palestine.

Abrraj also has a strong history of taking private listed companies and pursuing a “value creation plan” to improve performance. This plan usually focuses on corporate governance. Its first successful deal in this space was for Aramex, the express delivery company, which it took private through a leverage buyout partnership with Aramex management in 2002 and re-listed with a hugely oversubscribed IPO in 2005.

Private Equity International listed Aramex as the most influential Asian private equity deal in 2002.