Heinz Completes Sale of New Zealand Poultry Processor

NEW ZEALAND - H.J. Heinz Company HNZ has completed the sale of its Auckland, New Zealand-based poultry business, Tegel Foods, to Pacific Equity Partners. The transaction is valued at NZ$250 million (approximately US$165 million).

First announced on December 22, 2005, the transaction is part of Heinz's strategy to divest non-core businesses in order to focus on growth in its core categories: Ketchup & Sauces, Meals & Snacks, and Infant Nutrition.

Heinz Chairman, President and CEO William R. Johnson noted: "This divestiture continues the execution of our strategic plan, which is aimed at making Heinz a more focused, faster-growing and higher-margin company. We expect total proceeds from our program of strategic divestitures to be approximately $1 billion. Recent divestitures have included our seafood businesses in Europe and Israel, HAK(R) vegetables in the Netherlands, and HP Ethnic Foods in the U.K. And, in December, we sold our stake in The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. We have identified a number of other non-core assets which we intend to divest over the next six to twelve months."

Tegel is a leading processor of fresh poultry and animal feeds. It markets Tegel(R) brand chilled and frozen chicken and turkey products and owns processing plants, feed mills and livestock operations throughout New Zealand. Tegel was purchased by Heinz in 1992.

Source: MSN

10 April 2006