Financing for Vion

A EUR 125 million facility for international fresh meat producer Vion is giving the food group the financial flexibility it needs to move forward. NIBC joined forces with ABN AMRO Commercial Finance and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to provide Vion with working capital to strengthen its business.

NIBC has long-supported Vion, one of Europe’s largest slaughtering and meat processing companies with a turnover of EUR 5 billion. In 2014, it was named Germany’s best meat company and the market leader in terms of animal welfare.

In recent years, Vion took steps to restructure its operations, divesting from its UK activities and its speciality ingredients business to concentrate on meat processing in Germany and the Netherlands. This has helped the company to improve its financial results and strengthened confidence in its future. As one of Vion’s previous banks, we underpinned our confidence in its new strategy by committing EUR 50 million to finance its working capital requirements. We also supported our client in its discussions with additional lenders, leading to ABN AMRO Commercial Finance also contributing EUR 50 million. In July, the facility has been increased to EUR 125 million while at the same time Bank of America Merrill Lynch joined the syndicate, rebalancing commitments to EUR 45 million from ABN AMRO Commercial Finance, EUR 40 million from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and EUR 40 million from NIBC.

The company also announced changes to its top management. Francis Kint is the new CEO and Joost Sliepenbeek CFO.

Vion is now well positioned for the future and has the financial flexibility it needs to move ahead with its plans.