New owners of Goldshield’s Consumer Health eying North American acquisitions
The management team, led by Michael Swift, successfully completed this week a management buyout of the division, which produces products such as vitamins, minerals, and branded nutritional supplements, and sells directly to consumers in the USA, Canada, UK and France.
”My management team is very pleased with this outcome and expects the Consumer Health business to flourish standing alone, rather than being a non-core part of the Goldshield Group business.” said Swift, CEO of the acquired business.
Glen Robinson, the entity’s new CFO, told NutraIngredients-USA that the acquired business will be renamed in the coming weeks and transitioning over to the new name will take place over the next 12 months. “The individual brands, which is what the customer knows and buys, will not change,” he added.
The well-established brand names include Vitamins Direct, Goldshield Elite, Goldshield France, Goldshield Direct and Regina.
Moving forward
Robinson explained that the first priority for the new business is to separate it from the old “with as little disruption as possible.
“The second priority is to clean-up the business as much as possible [including a refreshing of the branding], and we will then begin implementing a new strategy of line development and geographical expansion,” he added.
“We are also looking to grow aggressively via acquisition in North America.”
The US$20 million business is split 60 percent Europe and 40 percent North America, said Robinson. “We are without any debt and intend to use that to our advantage,” he said.
Acquisition timing
The management buyout (MBO) was reportedly welcomed by the Goldshield Group Limited owners (HG Capital), management and the Consumer Heath divisional management. The division covers three of the major healthcare market categories: Joints and mobility, female wellbeing and vanity, and male wellbeing and vanity.
Robinson explained that part of the terms of the group buyout was a complete replacement of management: “The new management where not experienced in OTC or consumer health and where uneasy managing and more importantly investing in this business. The new management with the blessing of HG asked the management if they would consider an MBO.”
Manufacturing and product development is outsourced to reliable established players across Europe, USA, Canada and Asia.
