LANARKSHIRE jam-maker R&W Scott has been bought out by its management from Alternative Investment Market-listed Real Good Food in a £4 million deal.
The buy-out was led by the firm’s managing director, John Easton, along with fellow directors Stephen Currie and Michael Hewitt. R&W Scott, which has been producing jams and preserves for more than 130 years, employs 94 people. The bulk of the employees work at R&W Scott’s Carluke base. The workforce also includes three field-based salespeople.
As well as jams and preserves, R&W Scott manufactures chocolate-flavoured coatings, sweet and savoury spreads, and speciality soft icings. It serves retail, foodservice and wholesale customers, and has a significant export business.
Real Good Food said it would receive consideration of £3.95 million as a result of the management buy-out. It will receive a cash payment of £1.5 million, £0.5m of which is deferred until September 30 next year, and the R&W Scott management team will assume £2.45m of third-party debt.
Real Good Food said that R&W Scott had, in the financial year to March 2017, contributed £10.36m of revenue, incurring a loss of £1.22m before non-recurring items and tax. R&W Scott’s pre-tax loss was £3.3m in that financial year. R&W Scott had net assets of £1.89m at March 31, 2017. The R&W Scott team said that funding to assist the buy-out deal had been provided by Bibby Financial Services, consisting of asset-based finance and an invoice-discounting line, with further equity investment “primarily coming from the management”.
Mr Easton said: “I am delighted our team has acquired ownership of R&W Scott, where I have worked for over 12 years. For employees and customers, it’s very much business as usual in the short term. However, we do have several exciting innovative new products planned for the future.”
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