Düssel­dorf — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed KRÜGER GROUP on the acqui­si­tion of the rights to the Kaba, Suchard Express and Benco cocoa brands. KRÜGER is acqui­ring the brands from the French confec­tion­ery company Caram­bar & Co. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in early 2024.

KRÜGER plans to gradu­ally inte­grate produc­tion of the three brands, which include cocoa-based powde­red bever­a­ges as well as powde­red bever­a­ges for fruit-mix milk drinks, choco­late bars, and ready-to-drink choco­late milk, start­ing next year; the focus will then be on laun­ching new products.

The KRÜGER GROUP is a leading company in the food indus­try with more than 5,000 employees and sales of appro­xi­m­ately 2.3 billion euros. The product port­fo­lio of the globally active family company includes bever­a­ges, confec­tion­ery and choco­late products, infant nutri­tion, dietary supple­ments, OTC and phar­maceu­ti­cal products, and food ingredients.

The French company Caram­bar & Co. gene­ra­tes annual net sales of around 400 million euros with 14 brands. Katjes Inter­na­tio­nal, the invest­ment arm of confec­tion­ery manu­fac­tu­rer Katjes Group, has a stake of around 23 percent in Caram­bar & Co.

McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses KRÜGER GROUP on inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions and natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal anti­trust and compe­ti­tion law issues.

Advi­sors KRÜGER GROUP: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf

Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust), Dr. Thomas Ammer­mann (Corporate/M&A), Stef­fen Woitz (IP/IT, Munich), Nico­las Lafont (Corporate/M&A, Paris), Romain Desmonts (Tax, Paris), Carina Kant (Coun­sel, Anti­trust); Asso­ciate: Max Kütt­ner (Anti­trust)
Inhouse: Dr. Martin Fröh­lich (Lead, M&A), Dr. Kai Danel­zik (Corpo­rate), Kai Piepen­stock (Head of Tax), Nives Gara­se­vic (Tax)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.mwe.com/de/