UCC Holdings acquires Suntory Coffee Australia for US$158.4m

Toby's Estate's flagship café and roastery in Sydney, Australia | Photo credit: Toby's Estate

---

UCC Holdings has acquired Australian coffee business group, Suntory Coffee Australia Limited (SCA) for ¥18.5bn ($158.4m). The transaction was made through a newly created UCC subsidiary, UCC ANZ Management, and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022.
 
SCA is one of the largest groups of coffee roasters in Australia and New Zealand, and is comprised of major brands including Toby’s Estate, which also has operations in Singapore, as well as New Zealand-based Caffe L'Affare, Atomic Coffee Roasters, Bruno Rossi and Robert Harris. It also controls Australian coffee equipment, spare parts and service provider, Espresso Mechanics.
 
SCA’s parent company, Suntory Beverage & Food (SBF), manages a diverse portfolio of soft drinks, alcoholic spirits, ready-to-drink-coffee, tea, and energy drinks and posted revenues of $20.4bn in 2020.
 
Japan-headquartered UCC has a vast network of coffee interests around the world, encompassing coffee estate management, retail coffee manufacturing and equipment distribution and sales.
 
“Through this transaction, we will enter the stable and growing coffee markets of Australia and New Zealand. SCA and its subsidiaries are leading markets in Australia and New Zealand, with a focus on commercial coffee, and own several leading specialty coffee brands such as Toby's Estate. We believe that each of these SCA businesses has a very high affinity with the UCC Group, and we will accelerate further business growth through this matter,” said UCC in a press statement.
 
The deal represents the latest sale of major Australian and New Zealand-based coffee roasters on the international stage. In April 2021, Japan-based Asahi Beverage acquired Allpress Espresso, which has operations in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Japan and Singapore.
 
The following June, JAB Holding-controlled JDE Peet’s acquired Australian specialty roaster, Campos Coffee, which is available at supermarkets and more than 600 cafés across Australia, and posted annal revenues of around $50m in 2020.