DALLAS — Fuerst Day Lawson Limited (“FDL”), a portfolio company of Highlander Partners, L.P., announced today the acquisition of Quest Ingredients Limited (“Quest Ingredients”) from Quest Vitamins Limited. Quest Ingredients, headquartered in Hereford, England, is a manufacturer of high-quality proprietary food flavours, animal feed flavours and active botanical extracts with a repeat client base across the food and beverage, pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors.
Operations will continue to be conducted from Quest Ingredients’ existing facility in Hereford, and its employees will join the FDL team. The transaction supports FDL’s stated strategic objective of expanding in its core markets and customer base in Europe and the United States where there continues to be abundant opportunities for growth.
Eric Beatty, CEO of FDL, said, “We believe the addition of Quest Ingredients is strategic and highly complementary to FDL’s existing portfolio of ingredients and formulated solutions. We are excited to offer Quest Ingredients’ unique process capabilities to existing FDL customers and expand services to Quest Ingredients’ customers with FDL’s products and innovation capabilities. We are thrilled to work with the Quest Ingredients team to continue growing the combined business.”
Chaz Thomas, a Director of Highlander and a board member of FDL, stated, “This acquisition strengthens FDL’s ability to deliver customized flavour and botanical extracts across both customer bases by expanding our capabilities and innovations expertise. We believe growing demand for customized flavourings and health enhancing natural ingredients will continue to be top of mind with our customers, and Quest Ingredients is uniquely positioned to meet these needs. We will continue to be aggressive in growing our innovative ingredient solutions and deepening our capabilities in our core markets.”
Jeff L. Hull, President and CEO of Highlander and FDL board member, added, “This acquisition reconfirms our strategy of executing on attractive add-on acquisitions that enhance and expand FDL’s existing applications expertise and product offerings. We are continuing to evaluate M&A opportunities and expect to make additional acquisitions going forward.”
Alinea Corporate Finance acted as financial advisor and Higgs LLP served as legal counsel for Quest Vitamins Limited. NatWest provided senior financing to FDL in support of the transaction.
About Highlander Partners
Highlander Partners, L.P. is a Dallas-based private investment firm with more than $2 billion of its own proprietary capital. The firm focuses on making investments in businesses in targeted industries in which the principals of the firm have significant operating and investing experience. Highlander Partners employs a buy and build investment approach, creating value by helping companies grow both organically and through acquisitions. For more information, visit www.highlander-partners.com.
About Fuerst Day Lawson (FDL)
FDL, founded in 1884 and headquartered in London, UK, is a formulator, developer and manufacturer of proprietary taste and nutrition ingredient solutions serving food, beverage, confections and other consumer markets. It offers custom flavours, syrups and sauces, fruit preps, juices and juice blends, bakery ingredients, energy and fortification blends and aroma chemicals, backed by deep applications development expertise. FDL serves a global customer base with operations in Europe, US and Asia. For more information about FDL, please visit www.fdlworld.com.
