Oil: Farmers Elite (Coricelli) set to take over Deoleo (which owns the Carapelli, Bertolli and Sasso brands)
The Spanish company, which is under Italian control, has offered 500 million for the major player Deoleo, now owned by two investment funds
Farmers Elite Global, a Spanish olive oil company controlled by the Coricelli family from Umbria (owners of the olive oil brand of the same name), is close to acquiring Deoleo, a Spanish multinational and the world’s leading olive oil producer, which owns historic brands from the Italian olive oil tradition such as Carapelli, Bertolli and Sasso.
Negotiations to acquire Deoleo from the two investment funds that own it (CVC Capital Partners, which holds a stake of over 50 per cent, and Alchemy Partners) are still ongoing, but in recent weeks the conditions for a breakthrough have come to fruition. Farmers Elite has submitted its €500 million bid (for a company that generated a turnover of €821 million in 2025) this summer, surpassing the initial offer (of 460 million) put forward by the olive oil cooperative giant Dcoop (which has a turnover of over 1.6 billion), in partnership with the Italian firm BF and with the involvement of another Umbrian olive oil industrialist, Farchioni.
Deoleo owns some very strong brands in the olive oil sector, as well as in the sector for other cooking fats. These include well-established brands on international markets such as the Italian brands Carapelli, Bertolli and Sasso, as well as the Spanish brands Carbonell, Hojiblanca and Koipe, alongside widely recognised mass-market brands such as Friol and Maya.
In recent days, there have been two significant developments that could unblock the deal. The first is that Antonio Luque, chief negotiator for the Dcoop group, has told the Spanish press that he rules out a revised bid, not least because the deadline for a new offer has passed. At present, the only offers on the table are the 500 million bid submitted by Lorenzo Coricelli on behalf of Farmers Elite and the lower bid (450) from the Spanish company Acesur.
And then there is the second major development. The shadow of a possible veto by the Spanish Government has hung over the entire operation until now. This is an option that can be invoked in relation to transactions of particular national significance, and one which the Madrid government recently exercised in the case of the acquisition of a 10 per cent stake each in Telefónica SA by a Hungarian company and an Arab investor.
