Saturday, July 9, 2011

Sri Lanka Carsons buys Malaysian fats maker for US$39mn

July 8, 2011 (LBO) - Good Hope Asia Holdings, a Singapore based unit of Sri Lanka's Carsons group that owns oil palm plantations has bought a Malaysian oil and fats firm to strengthen the downstream business, the company said.

GAHL has bought three units of Malaysia's Premium Nutrients Berhard, a specialty fats maker with plants in Malaysia and India.

It had bought 100 percent stakes in Malaysian based Premium Vegetable Oils (PVO), Premium Fats (PF) and Andra Pradesh, India based Arani Agro Oil Industries (AAO) for 119.96 ringgit or 4.27 billion rupees (38.8 million US dollars).

GAHL owns oil palm estates in Malaysia and Indonesia.

"The acquisition will directly place GAHL group as an integrated player with significant downstream business," Carsons said in a stock exchange filing.

"This will further complement the expansion in the upstream plantations and create a secure outlet for its increasing produce."

GAHL said Premium Nutrients is a 25 year old company which makes specialty fats for bakery, confectionary, creamers and ice cream industries and has research and development facilities to custom-produce ingredients for clients.

It exports to 55 countries, catering to multi-national players and regional brands in North America, Europe, Middle East, CIS, Australia, China and India.

The newly acquired plants produce palm kernel oil through solvent extraction, refines crude palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. They make specialty fats, margarine and butter blends and animal feed.

Commodity prices have been volatile this year in dollar terms in particular with the US Federal Reserve printing money and weakening its paper currency against real commodities. However last month the Fed ended some of the most controversial inflationary activities.

The acquisition will give access to value added segments of the business, moving out of the commodity end and give R & D capacity to serve business to business customers, Carsons said.

source - www.lbo.lk

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