Aryzta Hires Investment Bank to Help Simplify Business

The company has appointed investment banks Houlihan Lokey and Alantra to advise on selling unwanted assets to allow it to simplify its business and concentrate on “core markets”.

The stage had been set for the company to focus on unit sales – including Aryzta’s troubled North American operations – after talks on a potential outright takeover by a unit of US activist hedge fund group Elliott Management broke down in late October.

The group’s new chairman, Urs Jordi, who joined the company in mid-September as part of a boardroom coup and who was known to be against a sale, has made little secret of his ambition to slim down the group and lower its debt pile. Last month Aryzta received approaches from close to 20 parties interested in parts of the company’s operations.