Eden Springs Ltd. (Maayanot Eden) (TASE: MEYD) subsidiary Eden Springs (Europe) SA has acquired Nestlé Waters SAS for €9.5 million, and the company's German unit Eden Springs (Deutschland) GmbH was sold to Nestlé Waters Direct Deutschland GmbH for €9.6 million.
Nestlé Waters markets bottled water to 38,000 business customers in France. It has 150 employees. Eden Springs believes that it will have to invest an additional €5.5 million in the company.
Eden Springs says that Nestlé Waters SAS business has been declining, and its annual revenue is currently €18.5 million, down from €25.2 million in 2008 and €21.7 million in 2008. Eden Springs partly attributes the decline to the company's focus on more profitable businesses and the sale of less profitable ones.
Eden Springs has picked up 60,000 business customers since it began operating in France a decade ago, and the acquisition of Nestlé Waters SAS will turn into the market leader in this sector, with a 25% share of the direct marketing sector.
Eden Springs' share of the German direct bottled water market is smaller than in France, so the company decided to sell its operations in the country. Eden Springs Deutschland's turnover was €9 million in 2009. Eden Springs' total turnover from its Western European operations was €130 million last year.
Eden Springs president Raanan Zilberman said, "We are loyal to our business strategy to operate mainly in markets where we're the market leader, so we decided to sell our German operations." He added that, despite the sale, the company's German operations were quite profitable in recent years.
In addition to Israel, Eden Springs operates in 15 countries in Europe, where it delivers 23 million water containers a year to 625,000 customers and has a 20% market share in Western Europe and 10% share in Eastern Europe.
Eden Springs' share price rose 2% by early afternoon to NIS 9.60, giving a market cap of NIS 86 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 23, 2010
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