AgroFresh Solutions, Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell $150 million of newly issued convertible preferred stock to an affiliate of Paine Schwartz Partners, LLC, a private equity firm focused exclusively on sustainable food chain investing.
Jordi Ferre, AgroFresh Chief Executive Officer, commented, “Today’s announcement is an important milestone for AgroFresh. Our refinanced capital structure will be more appropriately balanced for our business and will allow greater flexibility to drive our diversification initiatives and put the Company in a position to achieve its next chapter of growth. Furthermore, Paine Schwartz brings deep domain expertise within the agriculture sector, which we believe will complement our leadership team and Board composition. We are excited to welcome them to our team and look forward to their future contributions.”
Graham Miao, AgroFresh Chief Financial Officer, commented, “This investment provides several significant benefits to our shareholders and represents an important step toward achieving our goal of optimizing the Company’s capital structure and meaningfully deleveraging the balance sheet. As we continue to improve the results of our operations, including cost optimization, this strategic equity investment will create further financial flexibility to generate growth.”
Kevin Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer and a founding Partner of Paine Schwartz, stated, “Through our global investments in fresh produce, Paine Schwartz has developed a long-standing thesis in post-harvest technology. We are excited to target new opportunities in the sector through this strategic investment in AgroFresh. AgroFresh is a leading independent platform that has a diversified network of direct customer relationships, a solutions-based service offering and a leading post-harvest portfolio. We look forward to working closely with Jordi, Graham and the team to enhance operations, drive growth and create value.”
Proceeds from the preferred stock investment will be used to repay a portion of AgroFresh’s existing debt. On a pro-forma basis for the twelve months ended March 31, 2020, the Company’s net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio will decline from approximately 5.8x to 3.8x.
Adjusted EBITDA and net debt-to-Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures. Please see the information under “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for a description of Adjusted EBITDA and the table at the end of this press release for a reconciliation of these Non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP results.
For more information:
AgroFresh
https://www.agrofresh.com/