Frank­furt — The Eckes-Granini Group has acqui­red a 35% stake in true fruits GmbH, Bonn, through Eckes-Granini Betei­li­gungs­ver­wal­tung GmbH. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. Foun­ded as recently as 2006, true fruits is one of the leading suppli­ers of smoothies in Germany with sales of EUR 43 million (2017). At the same time, the company repea­tedly makes head­lines with its head­line-grab­bing adver­ti­sing campaigns.

The smoothies market is conside­red one of the fastest-growing areas of the indus­try. The foun­ders of true fruits will remain opera­tio­nally respon­si­ble as share­hol­ders and mana­ging direc­tors. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the tran­sac­tion volume.

Eckes-Granini is one of the most important brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers of fruit juices and fruit-based soft drinks in Europe and is best known for brands such as granini, Pago, hohes C, Joker, Rynkeby and YO Syrup. Eckes-Granini was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Reed Smith under the leader­ship of Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Andreas Jürgens and Asso­ciate Dr. Philip Schmidt. Dr. Jürgens has a long-stan­ding client rela­ti­onship with Eckes-Granini in which he has alre­ady advi­sed on seve­ral transactions.

Based on this rela­ti­onship, Reed Smith now came into play for Eckes-Granini for the first time. Consul­tant Eckes-Granini Reed Smith:
Dr. Andreas Jürgens, Dr. Philip Schmidt (both Corporate/M&A, Lead), Tilman Siebert (Part­ner), Helge Aulmann (Asso­ciate) (both Merger Control), Dr. Anette Gärt­ner (Part­ner), Iris Kruse (Asso­ciate) (both IP), Dr. Marc Spiel­ber­ger (Part­ner), Clau­dia Kuhn (Asso­ciate) (both Employ­ment) END About Reed Smith Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with more than 1,700 lawy­ers in 27 offices in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.reedsmith.com.