Sofina Writes the Cheque for a Panzani Combination

Cerealis shareholders have opened exclusive talks with CVC Capital Partners to combine with French pasta group Panzani, at an enterprise value of about €1.8 billion ($2 billion). The Porto group and the Lyon pasta maker said on October 16 that the talks aim to create an independent European food group with about €1 billion in yearly sales and nearly 1,800 staff.

Belgian listed investor Sofina, already on Cerealis’s register, said it would put in extra capital to make the combination possible. CVC, which bought Panzani from Ebro Foods at the end of 2021, would keep only a minority stake, and all four owners would sit on the board.

Sofina Puts Fresh Capital Behind the Pasta Combination

Harold Boël, chief executive of Sofina, did not describe a passive ride-along. He said Sofina would deepen its Cerealis relationship by writing a cheque so the Panzani combination can happen, which is the cash that turns a pasta overlap story into a change of control.

We are delighted to deepen our relationship with Cerealis by providing additional capital to help make this transformative combination with Panzani possible and create a major European food group. Backing multigenerational family-owned businesses and supporting their long-term growth ambitions is at the heart of Sofina’s mission.

Harold Boël, Chief Executive Officer, Sofina, joint company statement, October 16, 2026

Sofina already holds a 10% shareholding in Cerealis, a stake it took in 2026, and it is represented in the company’s decision-making bodies. The portfolio note lists Cerealis as a pasta, breakfast cereal, cookie and flour house built around Milaneza, which it calls Portugal’s pasta market leader, and Nacional, one of the country’s oldest food brands.

The combined group would be owned by Cerealis’s current shareholders, the Moreira Da Silva and Silva Domingues families plus Sofina, alongside CVC’s minority. That is a family-and-holding-company register taking a French pasta brand off a buyout fund’s majority line, not a merger of two listed groups.

Pedro Moreira da Silva, executive vice-chairman of Cerealis, said the driver is product ranges, technology and know-how that fit. He also said both houses share a long-term view of their brands. The industrial pitch is the public wrapper. The money path is Sofina’s extra capital and CVC stepping down.

€550 Million Bought Panzani From Ebro Foods

CVC Capital Partners VIII agreed the Panzani dry pasta sale at €550 million in 2021, for the dry pasta, couscous, sauces and semolina perimeter. That business had €470 million of sales in 2020 and 750 staff. Ebro carved out fresh pasta and rice, including Lustucru Selection and Taureau Ailé, before selling 100% of Panzani SAS to Pimente Investissement, a French holding majority-owned by CVC-managed funds. The sale closed on December 31, 2021.

The brands that moved were Panzani, Ferrero, Regia, Zakia and Le Renard, with the plants and mills tied to them. Panzani now reports €620 million of 2025 sales and 900 people, which is about 32% more revenue than the 2020 perimeter Ebro sold, on a larger headcount.

The operating company still makes money. Panzani SAS posted €35.6 million of net profit in 2024. The debt sits above it. Pimente Investissement, the holding that owns the shares, carried about €525 million of financial debt at the end of 2024, while Panzani SAS itself showed only a thin financial-debt line. That is a classic leverage stack: the mills and the pasta lines sit in one company, and the buyout borrowing sits in another.

PANZANI’S PATH TO THIS DEAL

1. July 26, 2021: Ebro Foods and CVC Capital Partners VIII open exclusive talks on the dry pasta, couscous, sauces and semolina business, valued at €550 million.
2. December 31, 2021: Pimente Investissement completes the purchase of Panzani SAS. Lyon remains the headquarters.
3. 2024: Panzani SAS records €35.6 million of net profit. Pimente Investissement still carries about €525 million of financial debt.
4. 2025: Panzani group sales reach €620 million, with 900 staff, three factories and three semolina mills in France.
5. October 16, 2026: Shareholders enter exclusive talks to combine Panzani with Cerealis at about €1.8 billion of enterprise value, with CVC keeping a minority.

Less than five years after that New Year’s Eve close, CVC would no longer control the company it levered. It would keep a seat, a minority slice and exposure to a larger group valued at about 1.8 times the two firms’ combined 2025 sales. For a fund that bought a €470 million sales perimeter, that is an exit by combination rather than a clean sale or a listing.

France, Iberia and a Split Map of Brands

The two businesses barely share a shopper. Panzani is a French dry-grocery name with reach in the Netherlands and Central Europe. Cerealis is an Iberian and Central European house of pasta, breakfast cereals, cereal bars, biscuits and flour. The combination’s industrial logic is a brand swap across those maps, not a single factory system.

HOW THE TWO GROUPS COMPARE

Put the packs on the same shelf and the overlap is pasta, and not much else. Cerealis can take breakfast cereals and biscuits into Panzani’s French and Dutch grocery set. Panzani can take a French dry-pasta name into Portugal and Spain, where Cerealis already sells Milaneza and Nacional. Both sides already touch Central Europe, which is why Albert Mathieu, Panzani’s chief executive, would add that region to his brief.

They would keep a split operating model. Panzani would stay a French company in Lyon. Cerealis would stay a Portuguese company in Porto. The statement is careful on that point because French plants, French mills and French durum-wheat suppliers are the political core of the Panzani name.

Pedro Moreira da Silva Would Lead the Combined Group

Overall leadership would sit with Pedro Moreira da Silva, who would run projects that cut across both houses. Day-to-day brands and factories would stay with the two sitting chief executives, which is how the companies want works councils to read the plan.

WHO WOULD RUN WHAT

• Group lead: Pedro Moreira da Silva, Cerealis executive vice-chairman, would provide overall leadership spanning both businesses.
• Panzani and Central Europe: Albert Mathieu would remain Panzani chief executive and add the combined group’s Central European operations.
• Iberia and private label: Paula Meireles would remain Cerealis chief executive and oversee Iberian operations plus the international private-label book.
• Board: The Moreira Da Silva family, the Silva Domingues family, Sofina and CVC would each have a director.

Mathieu’s public line is aimed at French farms and French factories as much as at grocery buyers. He called the plan a new chapter and then listed the things that would not move.

By joining forces with Cerealis, we would build an independent pan-European player that is more diversified, stronger and more resilient, while preserving what defines our identity: our French roots, our operations, our brands and our commitment to our agricultural durum wheat partners. It is a growth project for both our teams and our partners.

Albert Mathieu, Chief Executive Officer, Panzani, joint company statement, October 16, 2026

In France the talks are already being read as a change of flag. That reading skips the last two owners. Panzani has been through Spanish industrial control at Ebro and then a CVC buyout. The companies say the Lyon headquarters, the three factories and the three semolina mills would remain French operations under Mathieu. The person with group-wide authority would be Portuguese, and the cheque helping to buy the majority would be Belgian.

The Glass Families Behind Cerealis

Cerealis is not a startup that found a French trophy. Teak Capital, the Moreira da Silva family holding, and Tangor Capital, the Silva Domingues vehicle, acquired Cerealis in September 2021 after Portugal’s competition authority cleared the deal. They bought it from the Amorim and Lage families, who had held it since the firm was founded in 1919. It was the first change of owner in 102 years.

At that close Cerealis had turnover above €210 million and about 700 people, with plants in Maia, Trofa, Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon and a 33.33% stake in Europasta in the Czech Republic. Brands included Milaneza, Nacional, Harmonia and Concordia. Carlos Moreira da Silva, whose family owns Teak Capital and who shares control of glassmaker BA Glass, said then that the buy was about value and room to grow abroad.

Five years later Cerealis reports €400 million of 2025 sales, about 900 staff, and plants in Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic. Sofina’s note says the group took Europasta and the pasta business of Cerealto in Spain, and now sells into 40-plus countries. Sales have almost doubled from the 2020 book Teak inherited. The same families who bought a Portuguese miller and pasta house are now using Sofina’s capital to reach for a French national pasta brand that is larger than they are.

Panzani’s 2025 sales of €620 million sit well above Cerealis’s €400 million. The combined about €1 billion of sales is a rounding of two books that still run as separate companies. The €1.8 billion enterprise value is for the whole, including debt, not a price tag on Panzani alone. Exact equity splits after Sofina’s extra capital have not been disclosed.

Works Councils and Regulators Still Have to Sign Off

The October 16 statement is a start of exclusive talks, not a closing announcement. No timetable was given. The deal still needs information and consultation with employee representative bodies and the required regulatory approvals.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Talks: Shareholders of Panzani Group and Cerealis are in exclusive negotiations to combine the two businesses.
• Size: The combined group is given an enterprise value of about €1.8 billion, about €1 billion of sales and nearly 1,800 people.
• Owners: Cerealis families and Sofina would control the group; CVC would remain as a minority and sit on the board.
• Operations: Lyon and Porto headquarters would stay, with Mathieu, Meireles and Pedro Moreira da Silva in the roles set out above.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Equity split: No figure has been given for CVC’s minority or for how much extra capital Sofina will subscribe.
• Debt: There is no public plan yet for Pimente’s about €525 million of holding-company debt inside the new group.
• Close date: The companies have not named a target completion month.
• Clearances: Which competition authorities will review the pasta overlap, and what they will ask for, is still open.

French works councils had to be consulted when CVC bought the business in 2021, and they have to be consulted again. Pasta plants and semolina mills are local employers, and durum-wheat contracts are a political fact in France even when the holding company sits above them. Competition review will look at dry pasta where both names already sell, including France and parts of Central Europe.

Until those points are settled, Panzani remains a CVC-controlled French pasta company based in Lyon, and Cerealis remains a Porto group whose Belgian shareholder has just offered more cash to buy a larger neighbour.