When Europastry, the Catalan frozen bakery giant, announced at the end of June, a week after launching the process, that it was freezing again sine die Its stock market debut once again set off alarm bells on the stock market. The company threatened the fourth trigger in its IPO attempt. Pere Gallés (died 2010), founder and father of the current executive chairman, Jordi Gallés, tried twice, in 1998 and 2007, but came up against the Asian financial crisis which affected European markets respectively. and the bursting of the real estate bubble. which led to the Great Recession. Jordi Gallés, the current patriarch, dusted off his father’s projects in 2019 but had to put them back in the drawer because investors showed little appetite for the shares of the frozen dough manufacturer, stifled by the coronavirus.
But this time it was the right one. Europastry will carry out the second IPO of the year, after that of the Puig perfumery group. It announced this Thursday that it would make its stock market debut on October 10 and that it would place 30% of the capital. The Gallés family, which today holds 76% of the shares through its heritage company, will now control 64% of the capital. company and – as it could not be otherwise – CriteriaCaixa has committed to acquiring a stake of up to 5%. The holding company that manages the assets of the “la Caixa” Foundation, in the midst of a wave of investments since Isidre Fainé placed Ángel Simón at the head, also looked at the Puig listing, where it invested 425 million euros to achieve a participation of 3.05%.
The one who will cash in is the Madrid investment fund MCH, which entered Europastry in 2011 and which today holds almost 20%, while the company’s CEO, Jordi Morral, will part with almost half of his current envelope of 3%, according to the prospectus. transmitted to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
Europastry is a global frozen dough manufacturing giant that sells to chains of bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets and which, according to information provided to the CNMV, is valued at 1,570 million euros. Based in Barcelona, it operates in 80 countries and has 27 production centers, including 15 in Spain. In 2023, it employed 3,760 people across Europe and another 1,130 outside EU borders, according to the company’s annual report for 2023. But it wants to accelerate the company’s insatiable growth, organic and inorganic, all by maintaining a “prudent capital structure”. ”, without further compromising its level of debt, which as of June 30 amounted to 667 million euros. Hence the IPO.
One of the richest in Spain
Over the last decade, Europastry has maintained a double-digit growth rate and has doubled its consolidated turnover in six years to almost 1,350 million euros, or 20% more than in 2022. It obtained an operating profit of 1,165 million and earned almost 69 million euros. euros after taxes, 90% more. In the first half of the current year it achieved a net turnover of 714 million euros, or 7% more than for the same period of 2023, according to information provided by the company in the prospectus stock market operation.
According to the latest annual accounts, the frozen pasta manufacturer paid dividends of 50 million euros to its shareholders in 2023, five times more than a year earlier. A significant summit for the Gallés Gabarró family (Glòria Gabarró, the mother, and her three children: Jordi, Anna and Eva Gallés Gabarró), which appears on the list of the richest she makes The world in 99th place with 675 million euros.
Europastry was founded in 1987 by Pere Gallés, when he wanted to give an industrial dimension to the supply of frozen pasta with which he himself began to experiment in 1985 to supply his own stores. Son and grandson of bakers, in the late seventies he developed the family bakery business (El Molí Vell) until it became the largest bakery chain in the province of Barcelona.
It became a pioneer in the production of pre-baked bread internationally, under the Fripan brand. The innovation consisted of a bread in which, as Europastry explains, all natural fermentations are respected and, halfway through cooking, it is cooled and frozen, thus becoming a long-lasting “non-perishable” product, capable of traveling and available at any time. with only 10 minutes of second cooking. With this invention, he decided to divide the company in two and in 1987 Europastry was born with the idea of supplying frozen dough to other bakers, restaurateurs and supermarkets.
From Starbucks to croissants (without horns) from Manolo Bakes
The current executive president, Jordi Gallés, who embodies the fourth generation of this line of bakers (and the second of industrialists), is the one who was responsible for the internationalization and expansion of the company. Jordi Gallés knows the baker’s trade because he learned it from the bottom up. He trained in a French workshop before returning to the family business, where he made a career: controllerresponsible for one of the group’s factories – that of Azuqueca de Henares (Madrid) -, director of operations, marketing, general director and, since 2010, the date of the death of the patriarch, executive president.
Gallés created a giant based on the purchases of companies in the sector: the Valencian Sualba in 2017, the Galician Ingapan, the American Wenner Bread… until reaching this year, with the German DeWiBack and the Dutch De Groot Edelgebak, in two operational reports in March and August respectively.
In 2016, Europastry sold its bakery activity (now Santagloria), to specialize in the manufacture of frozen bakery dough. Beyond its own brands such as Saint Honoré and Maestra (breads), Lykke and Saudade (pastries) or Chousa and La Masa Nostra (pizzas and empanadas), the Catalan company carries out most of its activity in production on behalf of third parties. Even if it does not reveal its customers, we know that it manufactures for Starbucks, Pret a Manger, Manolo Bakes – known for its mini croissants without horns (Manolitos) – Granier, Dunkin Donuts or Mercadona.
