Coppens has been in operation for almost 100 years.
The acquisition, said De Heus, is aimed at facilitating the company's further growth in its home market.
Market conditions, consumer needs and the demands of retailers are constantly changing, and to help its customers adapt to such circumstances, it is critical a feed manufacturer has sufficient production capacity and flexibility, noted Co de Heus, CEO of De Heus.
Hendrik de Vor, MD of Coppens, commenting on the deal, said: “We are confident that, in looking to the future, Coppens’s position and that of its employees will be properly safeguarded under De Heus’s wings."
The newly acquired Coppens plant in Helmond brings to 10 the number of feed plants De Heus operates in the Netherlands.
Total production capacity for that producer in its home market is around 2,5m tons, said a spokesperson. “Our annual volume, on a group level, is about 9m tons,” he told us.
The deal still needs approval from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM).
M&A activities
In March this year, De Heus completed another acquisition in the European market, that of Polish compound feed company, Golpasz. The transaction was finalized following formal approval by the Polish antitrust agency. With annual sales of almost 500K tons of compound feed, Golpasz is a market leader in turkey feed on the Polish market and has secured a leading position in broiler feed.
June 2020 saw De Heus announce it had bought Piensos Muga in Spain, a feed producer with an annual capacity of 80,000 tons, bolstering the Dutch company’s ambition to become a dominant feed player on the Iberian Peninsula.
Earlier that month, it acquired two production plants in Indonesia from ADM, which were the compound feed operations of Neovia in that market, namely PT Welgro Feedmill and PT Wirifa Sakti.
And, in another M&A deal, in March last year, De Heus acquired Brazilian cattle nutrition company, Cerrado Nutrição Animal, located in Itaberaí, in the state of Goiás.