Vitamin maker Nature’s Care up for sale; KordaMentha on hand
Heavyweight creditors, a pair of Asian private equity firms and a reclusive rich lister. Here’s a messy deal to sink your teeth into.
Nature’s Care was pitched as Australia’s third-largest vitamins company when it was pitched in 2017. Andrew Quilty
Street Talk can reveal vitamin manufacturer Nature’s Care, which has had JPMorgan and UBS test buyer appetite in the past, is back on the block after the company was said to have veered close to defaulting on its covenants.
Sources told this column on Sunday that the lenders, led by Singapore’s UOB, have appointed KordaMentha partner Ryan Rabbitt to oversee a potential deal, five years after two Asian private equity firms acquired a majority stake from Sydney’s Wu family.
It is understood the creditor group is seeking to sell Nature’s Care via a so-called pre-pack structure, whereby key stakeholders negotiate and agree to a deal before, but in contemplation of, a formal insolvency administration.
Nature’s Care makes supplements and beauty products such as anti-ageing Super Life Youth Series cream from a factory in the northern Sydney suburb of Belrose. It has about $180 million in debt and is working with law firm Allen & Overy.
The company is largely owned by China’s JIC Investments and Tamar Alliance Fund, which bought a majority stake in April 2018 from the Wu family and flipped it into a structure based in the Cayman Islands, where there is no ready visibility of company ownership.
The financials of the deal were never disclosed, however, analysis of lodged documents by the Financial Review Rich List research team in 2019 suggested founders Jina Chen and husband Alex Wu were paid about $361 million for a 55 per cent stake, valuing the business at about $650 million. The Wu
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