Bakkavör

Bakkavor Group Ltd

Type	Private
Industry	Food manufacturing
Founded	1986
Headquarters	London, England
Area served	United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Spain, USA, China (including Hong Kong)
Key people	Ágúst Gudmundsson, Chief Executive, Lýdur Gudmundsson, Non-executive Chairman
Products	Ready meals, soups, sauces, prepared fruits and vegetables, salads, desserts, dips, pizzas, ethnic snacks
Revenue	£1.69bn
Net income	£6.3m
Total assets	£281.3m
Owner	Bakkavor Group Limited
Number of employees	18,000+

Bakkavor Group Limited is a UK domiciled company is the ultimate parent company of Bakkavor Finance (2) plc ('Bakkavor') an international food manufacturing company specialising in fresh prepared foods. The Group operates 32 manufacturing facilities in the UK, and 18 sites in 5 other countries. It employs over 18,000 people with a turnover in 2014 of £1.69 billion. The Group’s head office is in London. It is listed 27th on the 2015 Sunday Times Top Track 100. The Top Track 100 league table ranks Britain's 100 private companies with the biggest sales.

Bakkavor was founded in 1986 by the two brothers Ágúst and Lýdur Gudmundsson, to manufacture and export cod roe to Scandinavia. By 1996 Bakkavör had become a medium-sized company selling processed fish products direct to European retailers. Over the next decade the company focused on expanding its operations internationally into fresh prepared foods markets, and by 2008 had acquired a number of businesses in the UK, Europe, Far East and US. Its largest acquisition was Geest plc in 2005. The company delisted from the NASDAQ OMX Iceland in 2009. In 2012 the corporate structure of the Group was simplified with a new parent company domiciled in the UK. Bakkavor sold its French, Spanish and Czech businesses in 2014. This was followed by the sale of its South African operation and a 40% stake in its Italian business later in the year. The Group acquired US prepared foods manufacturer B. Robert’s Foods in January 2015.

In January 2016, Bakk AL Holdings Limited, a company owned by Agust and Lydur Gudmundsson and funds managed by The Baupost Group, L.L.C., purchased shares in the Group. Bakk AL Holdings Limited owns approximately 89% of the outstanding shares in the Group.

Following the global financial crisis of 2008, Bakkavor's parent group became heavily indebted, forcing the Gudmundsson brothers into emergency talks with the company's bondholders.

Deloitte subsequently came under scrutiny for its role in the selling of a major stake of Bakkavor in 2009.

The firm's owners, Lýdur and Ágúst Gudmundsson, faced fraud charges in Iceland in 2012 relating to their ownership of the investment group Exista.