Associated British Foods PLC Acquisition of Illovo minority interest
April 08 2016 - 2:41AM
Dow Jones News
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RNS Number : 5620U
Associated British Foods PLC
08 April 2016
8 April 2016
Associated British Foods plc
Acquisition of Illovo minority interest
Further to the announcements on 8 February and 18 March 2016,
Associated British Foods plc ("ABF"), today announces that it has
reached agreement with the Board of Illovo Sugar Limited ("Illovo")
to acquire the 48.65% interest in Illovo that it does not already
own. The agreed offer price per share is rand 25 representing a
total consideration of rand 5.6bn (GBP262m) to be settled in cash.
ABF acquired its majority shareholding in Illovo in 2006.
Illovo is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is the
largest sugar producer in Africa. It is one of the world's lowest
cost producers, with leading market positions in South Africa,
Malawi, Zambia and Swaziland and a strong presence in Mozambique
and Tanzania.
Africa is a growth market for sugar, driven by increasing
populations and rising incomes. Illovo is well positioned to
capitalise on this growth although high global sugar stocks, low
world sugar prices and forthcoming changes to the EU sugar regime
have created a challenging trading environment. AB Sugar has a
strong track record of commercial development and delivering
performance improvement programmes and believes that full ownership
will accelerate Illovo's progress in these areas.
The agreed offer price is in line with the preliminary fair and
reasonable opinion provided by the independent valuation expert
retained by the Board of Illovo, Rand Merchant Bank, a division of
FirstRand Bank Limited. The transaction is expected to be
immediately earnings accretive for ABF.
The transaction is expected to be implemented by way of a scheme
of arrangement, which is subject, among other things, to Illovo
minority shareholder approval, which will be sought at an
extraordinary shareholder meeting of Illovo in May. Illovo
shareholders representing a majority of the Illovo shares not owned
by ABF have provided undertakings to vote, or to recommend to their
clients to vote, in favour of the scheme of arrangement.
Furthermore, Illovo directors who own shares in Illovo have agreed,
in principle, to vote in favour of the proposed transaction.
For further enquiries please contact:
Associated British Foods
John Bason, Finance Director
Flic Howard-Allen, Head of External Affairs
Tel: 020 7399 6500
African media
Aprio
Julian Gwillim
Tel: +27 82 45 24 389
UK & other media
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Chris Barrie, Eleni Menikou
Tel: +44 20 7638 9571
Notes to editors:
1. ABF is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail
group with sales of GBP12.8bn and 124,000 employees in 48 countries.
It has significant businesses in Europe, southern Africa, the
Americas, China and Australia. It aims to achieve strong, sustainable
leadership positions in markets that offer potential for profitable
growth, and deliver quality products and services that are central
to people's lives. The group operates in five business segments:
Sugar, Agriculture, Retail, Grocery and Ingredients.
2. AB Sugar, an operating division of ABF, is an industry leading
group in the international markets for sugar and sugar derived
co-products. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Spain,
southern Africa and China with an annual processing capacity
of some 5m tonnes of sugar and 600m litres of ethanol.
3. Illovo Sugar Limited is Africa's biggest sugar producer and has
extensive agricultural and manufacturing operations in six African
countries. The group produces raw and refined sugar for local,
regional African and export markets from sugar cane supplied
by its own agricultural operations and independent outgrowers
who supply cane to Illovo's factories. High-value products, manufactured
downstream of the sugar production process, are sold internationally
into niche markets. Installed electricity generating capacity,
fuelled by renewable resources, provides 90% of the group's energy
requirements. For the year ending 31 March 2015, Illovo generated
an operating profit of rand 1,655m (GBP77m) on sales of rand
13.3bn (GBP619m).
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 08, 2016 02:26 ET (06:26 GMT)
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