Investment holding company Brait says it has completed its initial public offering plans for food manufacturing company Premier.
Brait acquired the group, which owns brands like Snowflake, Blue Ribbon and Iwisa in 2011.
According to Brait’s results for the year ended 31 March 2022, the soon-to-be listed food producer had a strong performance in the course of the year, with an earnings growth of 36% year-on-year, to R1.5 billion.
The investment holding company attributed Premier’s performance to market share growth, volume growth, cost management and input costs pass-through.
In 2021, Premier, which also owns the Manhattan sweet brand, acquired Mister Sweet for R419 million. Brait said the integration of Mister Sweet into Premier is now complete.
Brait also reported that its net asset value per share grew by 5.9% to R8.37 compared to 2021.
As for the rest of its portfolio, Brait said Virgin Active, in which it has an 80% stake, had begun its recovery from Covid-19 related lockdowns. The gym chain completed its restructuring plan and debt refinancing, raising R1.8 billion.
Virgin Active also appointed South Africans Dean Kowarski as group CEO and Mark Field as its CFO.
The gym company saw its growth in active members increase from 754 000 to 847 000 in the course of the year.
"The capital raise and amalgamation of Kauai and Nü chains of healthy fast casual restaurants, which remains subject to regulatory approvals, will expedite Virgin Active’s recovery back to 2019," Brait said on Tuesday.
Virgin Active, acquired Real Foods Group, which owns the Kauai and Nü restuarant chains for R581 million this year.
The performance of UK based fashion brand New Look in which Brait has am 18% interest, saw its strong performance offset by underperformance from October and December 2021, due to the the Omicron variant outbreak, which resulted in lower footfall, as well as supply chain challenges.
However, Brait said New Look’s performance has been recovering since the beginning of this year.
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