In a joint press conference held in Beijing on December 16, Joyvio, which is owned by parent company Legend Holdings, and China’s Golden Win Mau (GWM) have announced they will merge to form China’s largest fruit company to be called Joyvio GWM, according to Fresh Fruit Portal. The merger is believed to be a strategic move to gain scale, enhance supply chain infrastructure, improve food safety, and to expand origination as China seeks to develop and upgrade its food supply chains.

 

The companies are two of China’s leading fruit companies with combined sales of US$773 million. Joyvio is China’s leading producer of blueberries and kiwifruit, and has been pursuing overseas strategic partnerships in Chile with Subsole, and in Australian with Perfection Fresh. More recently, the company began branding bananas from the Philippines.

 

“After the merger, we will become stronger in many ways, including our financial power, technical capabilities and combined experience,” Gold Wing Mau’s president and CEO, Liu Mau Wah told Fruit Net. “The merger will help us to create a fully integrated value chain, and extend our influence and market share in the industry.”

 

“Joyvio has prominent advantages in growing, R&D and branding; while GWM’s core strengths lie in our scale, supply chain and sales channels,” Mr. Liu said, reports Fruit Net. “Through this strategic merger, we hope to combine our respective strengths, and gain competitive advantages from farm to fork so as to achieve a great leap forward and accelerate the fulfilment of our common vision.”

 

The merger will be a 50-50 joining of equals, however, Joyvio’s tea and wine businesses will not be included in the transaction. Once the merger is complete, the newly formed Joyvio GWM plans to make significant investments in infrastructure, R&D, food safety initiatives, and retail channels in order to meet the group’s core goal of modernizing and upgrading China’s domestic fruit chain, according to Mr. Liu, reports Fruit Net.

 

Following the close of the deal, senior vice president of Legend Holdings and president of Joyvio, Chen Shaopeng and GWM’s president, Liu Mau Wah will serve as co-chairs of the new group with Zhang Jian (Jason Zhang) of GWM as CEO.