Buyout Funds Submit Offers For Food Group Iglo Thursday - Sources

A handful of private-equity firms will submit first-round bids for frozen-food company Iglo Group by Thursday's deadline, people familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires.

Bain Capital, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, PAI Partners, Blackstone Group LP (BX) and BC Partners are expected to put in bids, the people added.

Permira, the private-equity owner of Iglo, has hired Credit Suisse Group AG (CS) to run the auction for the business, which has been valued between EUR2.5 billion and EUR2.6 billion, or between eight and nine times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Iglo is Europe's largest frozen-food company by sales and makes products under the Captain Birds Eye and Findus brands in Italy. It posted Ebitda of EUR325.8 million on revenue of EUR1.6 billion for 2011.

Permira bought Iglo from Unilever PLC (UL) for EUR1.7 billion in 2006, and in July 2010 recombined Birds Eye with Unilever's other frozen-food business, Findus Italy, in a GBP675 million deal.

-By Marietta Cauchi and Jessica Hodgson, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]