Denver-based New Age Beverage Corp. has acquired Morinda Holdings Inc. of Provo in an $85 million asset buyout. Morinda was formerly known as Tahitian Noni International and Morinda Bioactives and is known for multilevel marketing of its lead brand, Tahitian Noni Juice, and other products made from the noni plant, a fruit-bearing member of the coffee family.
Morinda Holdings was founded in 1996 and has operations in more than 60 countries around the world with manufacturing operations in Tahiti, Germany, Japan, the U.S. and China. The company is primarily a direct-to-consumer and e-commerce business and has over 160,000 independent distributors worldwide. More than 70 percent of its business is generated in the Asia Pacific markets of Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia. Morinda had approximately $240 million in revenue and $20 million in adjusted profits in the past 12 months.
“We are so excited to be combining with New Age,” said Kerry Asay, CEO of Morinda. “When we envisioned what we could achieve with New Age’s portfolio through our system, we knew how transformative it could be for all our employees and independent distributors around the world. I have guided Morinda since its creation for the past 22 years, and am so proud of what we have accomplished. I am highly confident that (New Age CEO) Brent (Willis) will lead our company to even greater heights and I am very excited to become a shareholder of New Age.”
The purchase price will consist of $75 million in cash and $10 million in New Age restricted stock. The cash consideration for the transaction will be sourced from New Age’s current cash balance, the company said. The transaction is expected to close in late December.
The newly combined company will be headquartered in Denver with major operations in Shanghai, Tokyo, Munich, Utah, and more than 20 other countries, New Age said.
“This merger is excellent for both Morinda and New Age,” said Willis. “Morinda adds New Age’s portfolio of healthy beverages to its network to drive further growth alongside its lead brand, Tahitian Noni. New Age adds significant scale and infrastructure to accelerate growth. It is exciting to lead this company that has grown from $2 million to over $300 million in 2 1/2 years. We still feel like we are just getting started, and are excited to work with our new associates from Morinda to build the world’s leading healthy beverage company.”