Mavi Boncuk | United Biscuits, the British maker of Jaffa Cakes goes to Yildiz Holding of Turkey for about £2 billion ($3.2 billion). United Biscuits posted sales of £1.1 billion in 2013. The company has around a 25% market share of the U.K. cookie market. But it has struggled to grow in recent years, with 2013 profit down 3.4% from the year earlier. United Biscuits was founded in 1948 following the merger of two Scottish family businesses —
McVitie & Price and MacFarlane Lang. United Biscuits (UB) is the maker of such well-loved kitchen-cupboard staples as Jamaica Ginger Cake, McVitie’s Digestives and Mini Cheddars.
Istanbul-based Yildiz has made an offer valuing the biscuits maker owned by Blackstone and PAI Partners and have beaten competition from US cereals maker Kellogg’s, and Burton’s Biscuits, owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan of Canada.
Yildiz, founded by two brothers in 1944, owns biscuit and chocolate company Ülker Biskuvi Sanayi.The history of Yıldız Holding began in 1944 with the manufacture of the first Ülker brand Pötibör biscuits. These first biscuits produced in Eminönü’s Nohutçu Han factory by Sabri Ülker, his brother Asım and three other work colleagues.
Four years later manufacturing moved from the small facility to a modern biscuit factory in Topkapı’s Takkeci District, in the village of Sağmacılar. Ülker is a subsidiary of Yıldız Holding. Its association with Ülker has benefitted Yıldız Holding in its business activities and added value to its other subsidiary brands. Ülker was the first subsidiary of Yıldız Holding and is its main brand. Today, Ülker has hundreds of sub-brands that serving the consumers and holding a strong presence in the marketplace. The brands all share the same principles and values of Ülker manufacturing a wide span of products such as biscuits, chocolate, candy, chewing gum, liquid oil, dairy products, carbonated beverages, ice cream, coffee and baby food. It bought and turned round Godiva, the Belgian chocolatier, in 2007.