Under the plan, the fund will finance the development of the group, which sells its products under the Coco Rico brand, through a corporate bond issue.
“The financing comes from [the] investment funds under the management of [the fund’s] financial partner, CVI Dom Maklerski Poland, and it joins other sources [of funding] with the [aim] of providing the flexibility and resources needed to implement the group’s investment and development plan within the next two years,” AAylex Group said in a statement.
Financing for investment plan
The group did not disclose the scope of the investments to be carried out with the use of the €25m. However, AAylex said that the agreement would allow the group to considerably increase its capacities, “allowing us to enter a new growth stage which will create the possibility to position ourselves as a vertically-integrated producer, a regional, not only national, leader in the chicken meat market”, according to the statement.
BAC, Wolf Theiss and RM provided financial, legal and accounting support to the agreement.
The holding owns production units in nine counties across Romania. These include two slaughterhouses with a slaughter capacity of 4,000 and 12,000 head per hour respectively, as well as broiler farms, feed production facilities, meat processing facilities, hatcheries and other facilities, according to data from the group.
Sales on the rise
The latest development comes as AAylex Group reported improved revenues for 2017, at €127m. This represented an increase of about 23.5% compared with a year earlier.
AAylex Group said it was the largest meat exporter in the Romanian market. Some of the company’s main foreign destinations include the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Macedonia. Export sales cover close to 30% of the holding’s production, according to data released by AAylex Group.
In the domestic market, AAylex Group sells Coco Rico products through its own retail store chain, as well as through other retailers, and to customers from the on-trade (HoReCa) segment.
Over the past few years, the country’s meat consumption has been bolstered by the Government’s decision, since 2015, to reduce the value-added tax (VAT) on meat from 24% to 9%, as indicated by local meat industry players. Poultry remains the second most popular type of meat in the Romanian market, with an average annual consumption of some 20.1kg per capita. It is preceded by pork meat, of which Romanians consume about 29kg per year, according to figures from the country’s National Institute of Statistics (INSSE).
Headquartered in the country’s capital, Bucharest, the Romanian group is controlled by local businessman Bogdan Stanca. The meat business’ history dates back to 1982, when one of its current subsidiaries, Avicola Buzău, was established. AAylex Group’s facilities are BRC-, HACCP-, IFS-, ISO 9001-, ISO 14001- and ISO 22000-certified, as indicated by data from the company.