News

Wellbilt buys Crem International

February 26, 2018

Restaurant equipment provider, Welbilt Inc., has signed an agreement to buy Crem International (Avaj International Holding AB) from Priveq Investment Fund IV L.P. and SEB Venture Capital, for $224 million, with an expected Q2 closing date, a news release said. 

Coffee machine manufacturer Crem International sells its machines in more than 80 countries and is based in Solna, Sweden. The company has factories in Åmotfors, Sweden, as well as Gandia, Spain, and Shanghai, China, along with three research centers and six sales offices worldwide. 
Restaurant coffee machine brands it offers include Coffee Queen, Expobar and Spengler, which also includes manual and automatic espresso and filter coffee machines along with instant, liquid, freestanding and other machines.

The 2017 sales for Cream were about $90 million. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to earnings beginning later in 2018 and beyond. Run-rate synergies are expected to grow to approximately $10 million by 2020.

"The acquisition of Crem International is the first step in realizing our ambition to complement our organic growth strategy with select bolt-on acquisitions," Wellbilt President and CEO Hubertus Muehlhaeuser said in the release. "Crem expands our full-line of commercial foodservice equipment coverage by adding the fast-growing hot coffee category to our portfolio, which gives Welbilt the broadest portfolio of hot and cold beverage equipment of any company in the market. 

"Crem is very strong in Europe and Asia, supporting our strategic objective of expanding our presence in these two important regions. We foresee significant cross-selling opportunities between Crem's and Welbilt's respective customer bases in those regions, and see further opportunity to bring Crem to Welbilt's customer base in the U.S. and include it as a core offering in our fitkitchenSM system solutions."