Snack maker Haldiram's eyed by foreign investors like Blackstone, ADIA

From fried Indian snacks to local sweet delicacies, family-run Indian snack maker Haldiram's has long been one of the country's most popular food brands. Now, foreign investors like Blackstone and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority want a big bite of it.
 

Haldiram's was last year also an acquisition target for India's Tata Group, one of country's biggest conglomerates.
 

Here are some facts about the popular Indian brand:
 

• Haldiram's started in 1937 from a "tiny shop" in Bikaner in the western desert state of Rajasthan. It later expanded to New Delhi in 1983.
   
• The company's website says it has 1,000 distributors and its products are available in 7 million outlets. It also exports to many foreign countries including Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and Australia.
   
• One of its most popular snacks is "bhujia", a crispy fried Indian snack made with flour, herbs and spices and sold for as little as Rs 10 (12 US cents) across mom-and-pop stores.
   
• Haldiram's calls it "an irresistible Indian snack" which can "captivate your taste buds".
   
• Haldiram's started exporting products in 1993. The US was its first market, where it began with 15 savoury products, and later, in 2016, opened its first overseas factory in the UK.

• Beyond snacks, Haldiram's also sells ready-to-eat and frozen foods such as Indian curries and rice items. It also runs more than 150 restaurants which sell street-style Indian food, as well as Chinese and western cuisine.
• Last year, during deal talks with Tata, Haldiram's was seeking a $10 billion valuation. Reuters has previously reported Haldiram's annual revenues are around $1.5 billion.
   
• Haldiram's has almost a 13 per centshare of India's $6.2 billion savoury snacks market, Euromonitor International estimates.

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