COFCO Corporation made the press conference on its overseas acquisition in W Beijing Hotel on October 28, 2014. It made the announcement that the acquisition of Nidera and Noble Agri had been completed after relevant examination and approval. The deal was the largest of its kind in China’s grain and oil industry. It marked an important move made by COFCO in building up its global position.
COFCO made the joint acquisition of 51% equity of Nidera this February, the agro-product and commodity trader from the Netherlands, and 51% of Noble Agri this April, one of the subsidiaries of Noble Group which was the Hong Kong-based company managing the global supply chain of agro-products, energy products and metal and mineral products. The two deals were both completed after examination and approval of relevant authorities before this mid-October.
The acquisition was made jointly by COFCO, Hopu Fund, IFC, Temasek and Standard Chartered Private Equity. COFCO was the largest shareholder in the acquisition, holding 60%.
With the acquisition, COFCO’s assets exceeded USD 57 billion, its operating revenue amounted to USD 63.3 billion, its storage capacity reached 15 million tons, its annual processing capacity reached 84 million tons, its port transshipment capacity reached 44 million tons and its annual business volume reached 150 million tons. It also owned the global production and purchase platform and trade network including planting, purchase, storage, logistics and ports. Its overseas operating revenue would exceed its domestic one, which meant it had realized the global business integration. COFCO integrated its domestic logistics and transportation, processing centers and sales network with the global production and purchase platform of Nidera and Noble Agri. COFCO was enabled to connect Asia’s emerging markets which had the highest grain demand of the world with the Southern America and the Black Sea regions which offered the largest grain supply. This was a new engine to the grain market of the world.
As Mr. Frank Ning, Chairman of COFCO, said, the acquisition enabled COFCO have access to the production and purchase platform of the world’s main supply regions, laying foundations for COFCO to grow into a conglomerate and a market leader. The parties in the acquisition would benefit from it for building an integrated value chain on the global basis which would bring new opportunities, more efficiency and lower cost which was instrumental to prosperity and stability of the world’s grain market.
Mr. Ton van der Laan, CEO of Nidera, and Mr. Yusuf Alireza, CEO of Noble Group, share the same point that prosperity of the international trade was attributable to growth of the global population and consumption demand and also of unequal access to farmland and water resources. Cooperation with COFCO was expected to bring greater growth and better performance.
The other financial investors also shared their views that Asia’s economic growth was driving increase of demand. Agro-production of America and Eastern Asia would continue to expand in the future. Prosperity of international trade was assured. Asia’s demand in meat, dairy products and grains would keep increasing. They would like to devote themselves to the growing food industry of Asia and the world.
Senior management of relevant parties and mainstream media were also present.
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