The AFR reported on April 8^th under the headline, $500m revenue family-owned pork processor kicks off sale; flyer out. 

This is the possible sale of a family owned and operated Meat Processor called BE Cambells. The article went on to report that the “bidder sources said a one-page teaser had landed in inboxes, spruiking the company’s “blue-chip customer base” and “strategically located processing facilities.” 

This widespread leakage is not just bad news for the shareholders, it’s completely unnecessary. In reality, the business is now being promoted with the world and his wife aware of what’s happening, causing key “blue chip” customers, staff and others to become understandably, “spruiked.” The truth of the matter is that the shareholders are simply considering their options – any sale would not happen unless or until terms had been agreed and appropriate due diligence had been completed – so why spook everyone? Well simply put it’s either sloppy work by the advisors or there has been a breach of confidentiality or both. The AFR are now promoting the sale which will drive some in-bound activity.

Unfortunately, there is a loss of control with little opportunity to independently qualify interest and the likely sharing of sensitive commercial information in exchange for a confidentiality agreement, which as we can see is easily breached. This undermines the very value that the shareholders are seeking to unlock.

The alternative, practiced by Oasis since 1984, is the idea of qualification – our alternate process seeks to maintain anonymity of the business identity while a qualifications process in undertaken. Many potential buyers are ruled out without them even knowing they have been ruled out. How? Put simply, the targets acquisition criteria don’t match the business, a business that they do not yet know is for sale! This process protects the shareholders, staff, and other stakeholders whilst it is being established if genuine strategic interest emerges through qualification.

The elimination of noise is essential – we recently agreed terms that included an enterprise value of $100M between our client and a qualified acquirer. During the due diligence process, the vendor and the acquirer were unable to finalise terms. During this fairly lengthy process there was no leakage whatsoever and the business continues to operate with no “spruiking” of the key stakeholders. Nothing has been bought or sold until the execution of binding agreements – the less said until that happens the better.      

For more details on our unique process of maintaining anonymity speak to one of our Partners. In the meantime we wish the shareholders of BE Campbells well in their objectives.

References

[1] https://www.afr.com/street-talk/500m-revenue-family-owned-pork-processor-kicks-off-sale-flyer-out-20250408-p5lq3q