00:00So talk about private label overall, because I was under the impression that private label might have been having a little bit more of a struggle relative to some of the brands.
00:10But you are obviously seeing value here, longer term value here, than maybe others don't. Why?
00:16Absolutely. In Europe, private label is senior to brands in most categories.
00:22In the United States, it's still junior, still a discount product.
00:26But you see growth both in Europe, in the United States, and now also Middle Eastern Asia, which has been a branded market until now.
00:35We just did, I just heard you talk about Saudi Arabia.
00:39We just did a deal in Saudi Arabia where we bought the leading ketchup and vinegar maker there.
00:44So the world is becoming bigger for private label.
00:47Let's talk about where you see the most opportunity, just staying with that global perspective right now.
00:53I mean, a conversation we were just having with Michal was that there's a lot of cross-border M&A happening.
00:58So when you take a look at the country perspective, where do you think the most opportunity is?
01:03Well, it's all over in both hemisphere, both in Asia and in the United States.
01:09The global buy and build is the name of the game currently.
01:13You have three elements happening at the same time.
01:16The de-risking of the supply chain, which looked for a moment as it was a de-globalization, a globalization which is on fire.
01:24Don't believe what you're seeing.
01:25It's actually very, very strong.
01:27And at the same time, a balancing of how global trade is happening.
01:32So it's very, very difficult, which creates opportunity, which means people will have to do global buy and build.
01:39I am curious, Andrea.
01:40I mean, obviously, I mean, you've done some legendary deals over the years, primarily in Europe.
01:45And I am curious as to kind of what the state of private markets in Europe are right now,
01:50particularly relative to the boom that we've seen here in the United States.
01:54They're behind.
01:55And they're growing.
01:57They're growing.
01:58They will never be as deep as the United States.
02:00They are bigger.
02:02Most of the market is private in Europe.
02:04The stock markets are much smaller than you have here in the United States.
02:07But there is fewer transactions.
02:10But they're growing.
02:11They're growing.
02:11So it's not going to become like the U.S., where there is a very liquid and very deep market, but it's a very specialized market.
02:18Yeah, fascinating context there, comparing, of course, the European private markets to what we're seeing in the U.S.,
02:24which has just boomed in recent years.
02:26I want to talk about specifically your involvement in the food sector.
02:30We're talking about this acquisition for Treehouse.
02:32As I understand it, you had already owned a significant portion of their meal prep business.
02:36I know that you're involved in LaDoria as well.
02:39When you take a look at sort of the sector, the industry perspective, how much more exposure do you want to food specifically?
02:47Well, we already have quite a bit.
02:49We do about $12.5 billion of sales in the food and related sectors.
02:53So it's a big sector for investment industrial.
02:58We have Italy in the United States.
03:00We have Parker Foods, which has ingredients.
03:02You've seen a lot of activity also from other Italians, Ferrero buying Kellogg.
03:08We have we are scaled.
03:10So I would say for us, food is now the growth is going to be very much in the United States, not in sorry, in Asia.
03:19Not forgetting the United States, because we are opening more and more Italy.
03:22For instance, we're opening a Kennedy.
03:24We're just opening in Lexington down the road from here.
03:29So you're going to see more more investment for us.
03:31Do you worry at all about the tariff environment, given just how global some of your brands are?
03:37I mean, I mean, just this morning we were talking about, you know, Italian pasta basically not being a thing here anymore because of 107 percent tariff on them.
03:44Now, no, so tariff is an unwelcome new event, but it's the rebalancing of the trade is not.
03:54So they are cousins with each other.
03:56So it's going to cause some disruption, but it will mean that you're going to have not the trade that you had before, but you will have U.S., Europe and Asia with different approaches to each country.
04:09It will be more solid in due course.
04:12Free trade has positives, but, you know, from a general point of view, it also has a lot of negatives.
04:21So the rebalancing is extremely fast and it's extremely difficult to manage.
04:27But, you know, we have more than 90 plans in the United States and we will manage.
Be the first to comment