Kitwave Wholesale Group continues to Grow with Acquisition of Hulleys Frozen

Kitwave Wholesale Group, an independent UK wholesaler of FMCG products, has added an eleventh company to its group following the acquisition of Angelbell Limited (t/a Hulleys Frozen Foods). The acquisition is an excellent fit within the Kitwave Group in terms of its operations and national geography and complements the acquisition last year of another Frozen Food wholesaler, Eden Farm. Overall this will continue to widen Kitwave’s geographic reach and product offerings, and increase its customer base to c30,000.
Newcastle based Kitwave was established in 1987 as an acquisition vehicle set up to purchase independent wholesale businesses. NVM Private Equity (NVM) supported Kitwave in 2011 with £7.5 million of investment to support its acquisition strategy. Paul Young (Kitwave’s Group Managing Director), David Brind (Group Finance Director) and their team have since acquired Anderson Wholesale, Automatic Retailing, Teatime Tasties, Eden Farm, Squirrels UK and now Angelbell Limited.
Hulleys is a family business that has been trading for more than 80 years. It has a complementary product portfolio, being made up predominantly of ice-cream and a wider frozen food offering. Hulleys operates from six depots supplying a delivery network distributing across the whole of England including locations in Nottingham, Louth, Norwich, Kingwinford and Kirkham with head office based in Sheffield.
David Brind, Group Finance Director of Kitwave Group, comments: “The acquisition of Hulleys Frozen provides an exciting opportunity for the Kitwave Group, that will provide additional customers, products and services to our existing offering. In addition to the acquisition earlier this year of Squirrels UK the Kitwave Group now has developed operations across the growing sectors of discount retail, foodservice and frozen product. ”
Mauro Biagioni, Partner at NVM Private Equity, comments: “The addition of Angelbell by the Kitwave Group will serve to complement Kitwave’s existing portfolio of businesses. The success of previous acquisitions proves that Kitwave’s growth strategy is going exactly to plan since we invested four years ago and this latest addition will only strengthen this further. Paul and the team are keen to make further acquisitions across their industry to continue to grow in a fragmented market.”
The acquisition of Hulleys was supported by new finance facilities made available by Barclays Bank PLC. David Collins, Relationship Director of Barclays, comments: “As a longstanding Barclays customer we are delighted to support Kitwave with facilities to support the acquisition of Angelbell Limited. This transaction substantially strengthens Kitwave’s offering in the frozen & foodservice sectors, and also provides a real opportunity for the group to further grow their customer base.”
Kitwave was supported on this transaction by Muckle LLP and KPMG LLP by providing legal and due diligence services respectively.