TPG Capital hires Bank of America for $700m Made Group

Cocobella coconut water is among the products sold by Made Group, which is owned by TPG Capital. Picture: Supplied

US-based private equity firm TPG Capital is understood to have hired Bank of America for a sale of its food and beverage company Made Group.

Market sources suggest the asking price for the business could be at least $700m after

TPG purchased 60 per cent from the interests of Coca-Cola in 2021.

This was following the purchase of Australian listed bottler Coca-Cola Amatil by its affiliate Coca-Cola European Partners for about $9.3bn.

The deal at the time valued Made Group at between $300m and $350m.

The company sits within the TPG Asia fund and after buying the operation, TPG Capital has been moving to increase its scale, particularly within the Asia market.

Before the deal, Made Group had already launched products in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan and the plan had been to expand further into Thailand and South Korea.

Made Group manufactures and distributes a range of health and wellness focused food and beverage products, with a portfolio that includes coconut water label Cocobella, cold-pressed juice label Impressed, Rokeby Farms dairy products and vitamin water label Nutrient Water.

The Melbourne-based business that operates a 15,500 sqm manufacturing facility in the Victoria capital was founded in 2005.

Last year, it purchased the New Zealand yoghurt company Epicurean Dairy NZ and established a headquarters in Singapore and opened a new manufacturing facility in Thailand.

Sources say that the juice industry has been facing tough conditions with a global shortage of oranges pushing prices up from $US250 a tonne to $US600 a tonne, but for Made Group, that would likely be offset by other popular brands in its portfolio.

The supply of oranges in the past five years has fallen about 30 per cent, say sources.

Other deals in the sector involve Bega Cheese buying Lion Dairy and Drinks for $560m in 2020.

The Lion operations that Bega inherited included a cold storage distribution chain in service stations and corner stores, Berri fruit juices, Big M flavoured milk and fresh milk under the Pura name or house brand sales to supermarkets.

The $1.7bn Bega is in a legal dispute with Fonterra over the trademark licensing agreements for the use of its brands and the law around change of control.

Fonterra is amid a sale process by the New Zealand dairy giant of its brands and ingredients unit that it has called Mainland Group.

Bega is an eager buyer of the business and Fonterra is appealing a legal ruling in Supreme Court of NSW that would not rule out Bega having pre-emptive rights over the brand arrangements on a sale.