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A North West firm has completed the €300m acquisition of Dutch Seafood Company's shrimp business Klaas Puul.

Sykes Seafood, which has headquarters in Merseyside as well as a site at Manchester’s New Smithfield Market, made the complex transaction, which involved multiple stakeholders across Europe.

The firm said it did the deal despite difficult market conditions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the firm, the combination of Sykes Seafood and Klaas Puul will create a €300m pan-European seafood business with expertise in all species of shrimp, that will offer customers across Europe products in chilled and frozen formats for the retail, food service and manufacturing sectors.

Alan Dale, managing director at Sykes Seafood, said: “The Zeus team have been fantastic to work with on this deal. They have supported us really well throughout the transaction, the true testament of that is that we would be delighted to use them again on the next deal that we do.

“The combination of Sykes and Klaas Puul is something that is very exciting to us as it gives us a platform to conclude further Pan European deals with our core customers and also gives us the additional production capacity that we desperately needed in order to grow our sales.”

Zeus Capital acted as exclusive financial adviser to Sykes on its successful acquisition from the Dutch Seafood Company (“DSC”) and H2 Equity Partners.

Klaas Puul is one of the largest shrimp processors in Europe with operations in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Morocco.

The company has over 3,500 employees with annual revenues of €130m.

The business was part of DSC, a portfolio company of H2 Equity Partners.

Sykes Seafood is a family-run business focused on providing customers with sustainably sourced seafood.

Founded in Liverpool in 1862, the business is best known for supplying warm water shrimp to the ������Ƶ food and catering industries.

In addition to its manufacturing and processing facility in Sefton, the firm has a site in Manchester’s New Smithfield Market, specialising in picking and dispatching products to provide quality control in the supply chain.

Sykes also has an international reach, with joint ventures agreed with numerous factories and facilities overseas.

The transaction was led by Zeus Capital’s corporate finance team, split across both its London and Manchester offices,

The team, led by Gareth Davies and Richard Hughes, have advised Sykes Seafood on an ongoing basis for the past two years.

Richard Hughes, Founder at Zeus Capital, said: "It has been a pleasure advising Sykes on this transaction and working with their highly talented and ambitious management team.

"We were able to support the team in completing this transaction despite the incredibly challenging macro-conditions, which included securing a debt financing package from three European banks.

“The combination of Sykes and Klaas Puul creates a highly focused and specialised business and the perfect platform for further European acquisitions.

"We look forward to working with Sykes and Klaas Puul on the next stage of their journey and supporting them in delivering their strategic objectives.”