C&D buys Primetime Petfoods

C&D Petfoods, the company owned by the Reynolds family, has purchased the entire share capital of UK petfood company, Primetime Petfoods Ltd, for an undisclosed sum.

The purchase of the UK company, which had sales of €14 million in the year to end March 2004, brings to €80 million the expected turnover for the Reynolds group this year.

Primetime, based in Driffield, Yorkshire, employs 85 people and produces a range of dry petfoods.

C&D, based in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, currently employs 400 people. It is the largest manufacturer of own label wet pet food in Ireland and the UK, with an estimated UK market share of 60 per cent.

The Longford company has contracts with many of the larger multiples in the UK and Ireland.

The acquisition of Primetime, in a deal structured by AIB Corporate Finance, represents a move by C&D towards its objective of combining a dry petfood range with its wet petfood products.