Lion Capital said it would acquire Foodvest Group from funds advised by CapVest Ltd., for £1.1 billion ($2.2 billion/€1.4 billion), the firms announced Tuesday.

Foodvest is a major European food group with operations in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, France and a growing presence in Central and Eastern Europe. It is the parent company of Young's Seafood, Findus, and The Seafood Company.

"In the last year, we put two big European businesses together," said Harkjaer (pictured). "What they want to do take is take it to the next level.There's still a lot of consolidaiton to be done in Europe and we see ourselves as leading that consolidation over the coming years."

Lion Capital approached Foodvest several weeks ago and said it had been looking into the company and was interested, Harkjaer said.

"They said they had keen interest. They took a few weeks, looked at the company, liked what they saw, and we concluded the deal" late Monday, said Harkjaer.

What's interesting about the deal, Harkjaer says, is despite economic difficulties around the world, Lion found strengths in the company -- that 75 percent of its business is seafood and 75 percent of the seafood business is in the frozen sector.

"It's a difficult time in the U.S., it's a difficult time coming to Europe, so being in the right proteins is important, and I think this is the right place to be," he said.

There will be no changes to management at any of the major businesses, said Harkjaer.

"No, no, no. Private-equity buys the company, and a lot of what they're buying is the management," he said. "So they must have lilked what they saw."

Foodvest has more than 6,000 employees across 20 facilities in five countries and in 2007 had more than £1 billion ($2 billion/€1.26 billion) turnover.

In the United Kingdom, Young’s is the leading branded producer and distributor of seafood, with a 200-year heritage of selling a wide range of high quality seafood products, both chilled and frozen, in retail and foodservice channels.

Its products are staples of the British diet, and include the Young’s Chip Shop range and Young’s Admiral’s Pie, the United Kingdom’s best-selling ready-meal. It has turnover of more than £300 million ($600.1 million/€377.9 million) a year and is based in Grimsby, where it employs most of its 2,000 workers.

Findus is the leading, branded frozen food manufacturer in Scandinavia, with market leadership in Sweden, Norway and Finland within each of the frozen ready-meals and fish and vegetables segments in which it operates.

Findus has a strong presence in France, where it has the strongest brand recognition of any frozen food brand.

The Seafood Company is a leader in the production of chilled, private-label seafood products in the United Kingdom, selling to all of the major U.K. retailers. It is Europe’s biggest processor of farmed Atlantic salmon.

It has sales in excess of £250 million ($500.7 million/€314.9 million) a year and is headquartered in Grimsby, with key production facilities in Grimsby, Scotland and Norfolk. It employs around 2,000 people.

Headquartered in London, Lion Capital's principals have been investing private-equity capital since the early 1990s, and have invested nearly €4.5 billion ($9 billion/€5.7 billion) of equity in transactions totalling over €17 billion ($34 billion/€21.4 billion) in value.

Findus in the U.K. is a brand name used to manufacture products under license and is not related to this deal.

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