South African Food Giant Tiger Brands Is Set To Launch A Venture Capital Fund
South African Food Giant Tiger Brands Is Set To Launch A Venture Capital Fund. South Africa’s Tiger Brands will launch a venture capital fund to invest in food and beverage start-ups, its Chief Executive told MoneyWeb on Thursday after the food producer reported a 21% rise in half-year profit and resumed interim dividends.
The fund, to be launched in June, will focus mostly on South Africa, Noel Doyle told analysts, with an initial capital allocation of less than R100 million ($7 million). He did not give a longer-term target for the size of the fund.
“It aims to give food and beverage start-ups the much needed capital they require and also accelerate Tiger Brands’ involvement in emerging and existing consumer trends such as health and nutrition, plant based foods, convenience …,” investor relations officer Nikki Catrakilis-Wagner added.
According to MoneyWeb, the owner of popular brands such as Jungle Oats, Albany bread and Tastic rice said revenue increased by 8% to R16.4 billion. This was offset slightly by an overall volume decline of 1%. The group was unable to fully recover the high level of agricultural commodity costs, placing “naked” margins under pressure. Naked margin is the difference between selling price and the raw material cost. However, a steady improvement in manufacturing efficiencies resulted in the gross margin for the group remaining flat at 30.6%.
Tiger Brands Limited (JSE: TBS) is a South African packaged goods company. In addition to the company’s South African operations, Tiger Brands also has direct and indirect interests in international food businesses in Chile, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya and Cameroon. Tiger Brands is South Africa’s largest food company.
Founded in 1921 by Jacob Frankel, with help from Joffe Marks, Tiger Brands Limited, formerly known as Tiger Oats Limited, began as a family business. 2010 box of Jungle oats (left) oatmeal as well as an example of the first box from the 1920s (right) reflecting how the use of the Tiger Oaks logo on its packaging has changed in the 90 years since its founding. Originally known as Tiger Oats, Tiger Brand’s first product was a breakfast oatmeal brand called Jungle Oats.
