Paine Schwartz Partners, a global investment leader in the sustainable food supply chain, has made a strategic investment in MS Biotec® through its $893 million Paine Schwartz Food Chain Fund IV.
With a vision to being the global leader in developing innovative solutions for animal-production agriculture, MS Biotec® is the world’s first and only commercial producer of Megasphaera elsdenii, a lactate-utilizing probiotic that enables feedlots to accelerate cattle from roughage to high-concentrate diets.
Utilizing a new state-of-the-art production facility located in Wamego, Kansas, MS Biotec® has developed a proprietary anaerobic fermentation and formulations that maximize performance; raising profitability for operators in both the beef feedlot and dairy markets.
“We are excited to be making this investment in MS Biotec®, a company with a strong team, a proprietary set of products and proven ability to commercialize a high-quality product pipeline with significant growth prospects,” said Kevin Schwartz, CEO and founding partner of Paine Schwartz.
The growth potential is truly huge. The global animal health products market carried a value of US$32 billion in 2016, according to Research and Markets, and is expected to see a CAGR of 5.6 percent between 2017 and 2025, when it is expected to reach a value of US$53.4 billion.
The category of feed additives is expected to be the leader in driving this growth, based on increasing demand for higher protein diets, a growing concern for the wellbeing of herd animals, and larger herd sizes.
MS Biotec® plans to use the undisclosed capital gained through this investment to accelerate the development and commercialization of its innovative product lines, and to grow its organization in order to be better positioned to capitalize upon significant market opportunities.
“The team at Paine Schwartz is bringing important financial resources and agribusiness expertise that will enable us to develop next-generation products and allocate further resources to animal studies, R&D and sales and marketing,” said Leander van der Walt, CEO of MS Biotec®. “The entire MS Biotec® team is energized and excited about our future as we begin our company’s next phase of growth.”
This investment comes only weeks after Paine Schwartz’ investment team announced the addition of Steve Bierschenk as managing director on September 17. Bierschenk brings more than 30 years’ of management experience in the agribusiness and life sciences domains, and comes to Paine Schwartz after 18 years with Monsanto, where he most recently was a member of the Global Strategy Leadership Team, and helped drive the company’s vegetable business and competitive strategies, as well as its emerging growth platforms.
“We are continuing to bolster the domain expertise and operating experience of our team as we work to capture the significant investment opportunities we see across the food and agribusiness value chain,” said Schwartz. “We have known Steve for many years including seeing him in action and are very excited about the significant value he will add to the firm and our investments.”
Paine Schwartz’ investment in MS Biotec® ties the firm in with a dynamic investment category, as the health benefits of probiotics become more understood, and their adoption rate in sustainably and naturally managing the health of livestock grows.
“We have spent significant time analyzing the animal health industry and MS Biotec® represents the type of sustainable agribusiness investment we are targeting with our growth equity strategy,” said Schwartz. “The company is well positioned to capitalize on opportunities in the growing natural animal health products market, driven by the needs to increase productivity with sustainable solutions.”
-Lynda Kiernan