Dublin-based Irish Biscuits has been sold by the French food group Danone to the privately-owned United Biscuits, it was confirmed today.
Danone is also selling a British biscuit firm as part of a deal valued at an estimated €302.5 million.
More than 400 people are employed at the Tallaght plant, referred to locally as Jacobs. Danone has declined to comment on the implications of the sale for jobs at the factory.
United Biscuits, with its McVitie's, Penguin and Hula Hoops brands, now intends to take on Danone's brands such as Jacob's Cream Crackers, Thai Bites and Twiglets, with the combination
set to control over a quarter of the British biscuit market.
Regulators will look carefully at the deal with United Biscuits' 20 per cent market share in Britain being added to Danone's 7 per cent. Burton's Biscuits, owned by US private equity player Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, has around a 10 per cent share.
A United Biscuits spokesman said the group hoped the deal would be cleared, especially as a number of new entrants such as US private confectionery company Mars were entering the UK
biscuits market.
The Danone companies, Jacob's Bakery Ltd in Britain and Irish Biscuits in Ireland, had 2003 sales of €266 million ($326 million), including €70 million in the State. United Biscuits' sales in 2003 were £1.3 billion pounds sterling.
Irish Biscuits leads the biscuit market in the State with brands such as Kimberley, Mikado and Jacob's Fig Rolls.