Graze’s private equity owners ready to chomp down on £300m sale
The owners of healthy snack box delivery company Graze are preparing to get their teeth into a £300m sale, according to reports.
Private equity firm Carlyle, which bought a majority stake in the business for a rumoured £50m in 2013, has appointed boutique investment bank Harris Williams to run the sale according to the Sunday Telegraph.
Venture Capital firms Draper Esprit and Octopus Ventures, who both first backed the business in 2009, both still own minority stakes.
Carlyle backed Anthony Fletcher, the former chief marketing officer at Innocent Drinks who joined Graze in 2009, to lead a management buyout of Graze from its co-founder Graham Bosher.
Since then, it has expanded its sales beyond mail-order boxes to products in physical stores, and last year generated revenues of £70.3m. It noted that growth last year was driven by increased US sales and distribution.
Carlyle has had success in the healthy eating space previously. Just this summer it announced the £1.77bn sale of health and wellness supplements chain Holland & Barrett to L1 Retail, a branch of investment group LetterOne.