Building better businesses - Permira

Investment
overview
Birds Eye iglo Group (‘BEIG’) is a branded European
frozen food company that produces fish, vegetables,
poultry and ready meals, including a number of iconic
products such as Fish Fingers and Schlemmer Filets.
Around half of the company’s business is in the UK
where it operates under the Birds Eye brand. The
remainder operates in continental Europe, particularly
Germany and Austria, where products are sold under
the iglo brand. BEIG was acquired by a company
backed by the Permira funds from Unilever in
November 2006.
BEIG demonstrated resilient performance
despite a challenging consumer environment
and achieved EBITDA growth of 4% on a
constant currency basis in 2009. Since
acquisition, the ambition of the business
has been to restore growth in core product
categories whilst maintaining strong
profitability levels. In 2009, BEIG’s core
categories continued to perform well,
driven by new product innovation as well
as renovation of existing products in the
fish and poultry categories. 2009 saw a
significant new launch in the UK with the
‘Bake to Perfection’ range of ‘bake in a
bag’ oven-cooked fish which has already
delivered strong results. Product innovation
successfully launched in one market (e.g.
‘Bake to Perfection’ or poultry) is now being
rolled out into other BEIG geographies.
BEIG also entered two new markets in
2009 – Turkey and Russia. The Turkish frozen
food market is relatively underdeveloped,
which presents a good opportunity for BEIG
to grow the overall category by introducing
‘classic’ products such as Fish Fingers. In
Turkey, BEIG has achieved leading market
shares in less than a year. In Russia, BEIG has
just launched its first major TV campaign to
support the business’s entry into the market.
These two new geographies are an important
step in consolidating BEIG’s position as a
truly pan-European platform for frozen food
and should provide an attractive source
of top line growth going forward.
2009 saw continued strengthening of the
executive management team with several key
new hires to complement the existing team.
New hires included Achim Eichenlaub
(previously with Reckitt Benckiser) as MD
for the iglo business and Martina Sandrock
(previously with Sara Lee) as General
Manager for Germany.
The business is now well positioned to
benefit from the investment in a very strong
management team and an exciting pipeline of
new product innovations. The recent launch
of ‘Field Fresh’ vegetables in the UK is an
example of the innovation that is expected
to contribute to growth in 2010. This level
of ongoing innovation is key to generate
long-term, sustainable top line growth.
Permira Annual Review 2009 Our Portfolio 41