Aterian Investment Partners to buy Hain Pure Protein

Hain Celestial intends to sell its Hain Pure Protein (HPP) business to Aterian Investment Partners for a price of $80 million.

The company on May 9 announced its intent to sell the business, which it has been trying to divest of since February 2018.

According to a press release from Hain Celestial, it has reached a definitive agreement to sell all of its equity interest in HPP, which includes the FreeBird and Empire Kosher businesses.

Aterian Investment Partners, according to its website, “invests in industry-leading, middle market businesses providing resources to further enhance operations, growth and investment initiatives.”

The transaction is expected to close before June 30, 2019, the end of Hain Celestial’s fiscal year.

"We are pleased to have entered into an agreement for the sale of our remaining Hain Pure Protein businesses," said 

Mark L. Schiller, Hain Celestial's president and chief executive officer. "This divestiture is another step forward in simplifying our organization aligned with our transformational strategic plan as we aggressively pursue margin enhancing initiatives to fuel long-term sustainable growth and profitability. We expect the sale of Hain Pure Protein to also help improve our balance sheet as we generate cash from the sale with which we plan to use in part to pay down debt. We believe these non-core brands will generate better results under the ownership of an organization that is focused on the protein category." 

Centerview Partners acted as a financial advisor to Hain Celestial.

Earlier divestiture of Plainville Farms

Hain Celestial’s planned sale of HPP follows the earlier divestiture of its Plainville Farms turkey business, which was previously part of HPP.

It February, Hain Celestial announced that it had been sold to Delaware-based Plainville Brands LLC, which was formed by a group of private investors. Terms of that transaction were not disclosed.

Prior to that sale, Hain Celestial Chief Financial Officer James Langrock said, “We had originally anticipated selling HPP in its entirety, and now we expect multiple transactions.”

According to the WATT PoultryUSA Top Poultry Companies survey, HPP is the 25^th largest broiler company in the United States, processing 1.85 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis. It ranked 14^th among U.S. turkey producers, processing 198 million pounds of turkey annually.