Capri-Sun‘s owner Hans-Peter Wild is looking for a buyer who wants a minority stake in the company. The Swiss billionaire is now in his eighties and is preparing his succession.
Time for a fresh start?
Hans-Peter Wild, one of the world’s thousand richest citizens according to Forbes, wants to sell a minority stake in his company. The 83-year-old businessman hopes to raise 500 million euros with it, but does not intend to use that sum for retirement: he wants to buy back Capri-Sun’s operations and licence in North America from Kraft Heinz.
The son of the fruit drink’s founder, Hans-Peter Wild built the company into a global success, thanks in part to television ads featuring boxing icon Muhammad Ali. In 2014, Capri-Sun’s sister companies were sold to multinational Archer-Daniels-Midland for 2.3 billion euros, but Wild kept the soft drink and Pouch Partners, which makes the famous pouches for Capri-Sun. In 2023, a Canadian group took over Pouch Partners anyway; now it is Capri-Sun’s turn to spread its wings.
However, Capri-Sun is no longer as fresh and fruity as it once was. Volume sold in 2021 was six billion pouches, a number that has been stagnant for years. The company restructured in 2020, but only this year did Capri-Sun Zero enter the market – still only in a limited number of its 100-plus countries. Capri-Sun says it has around 1.3 billion euros in revenue with 24 production sites. Will a new shareholder be able to bring a fresh wind?
