US oil giant Bunge makes offer for French firm Cereol - Company News - cooking oil company - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Eurofood, August 1, 2002

US grain and oilseeds firm Bunge is taking a slice of the European cooking oil company Cereol, following the announcement that it has offered to buy a 55% stake in the French business. The deal between Bunge and Cereol's owners, the Italian group Edison, is believed to be worth some 449.2m [euro].

As required by French law, Bunge intends to make an offer to purchase the 45% of Cereol shares that will remain publicly held after the closing of the purchase of the Edison shares.

A full successful offer would value the deal at 821.4m [euro]. The proposed deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals in the US and the European Union, would render Bunge the world's largest oilseed processing company. If successful, Bunge would also assume a total of 757m [euro] in debt.

In 2001, Bunge reported net sales of US$11.5bn (11.6bn [euro]) and operating income of US$527m, employing over 18 000 people in 21 countries.

In the same year, Cereol reported net sales of 4.7bn [euro] and EBITDA of 272.7m [euro]. Cereol employs approximately 6 100 people and has 52 industrial plants in Europe and North America.

BETTER GEOGRAPHIC BALANCE

Alberto Weisser, chairman and chief executive officer of Bunge, said, "The acquisition of Cereol makes Bunge the largest oilseed processor in the world with nearly 32 million metric tons of oilseed processing capacity. It expands our agribusiness operations in North America and substantially enhances our presence in Europe, giving Bunge an even better geographic balance.

Carl Hausmann, chairman and chief executive officer of Cereol, responded saying, "The core focus of both Bunge and Cereol is agribusiness, and as a result, this transaction will create a focused and highly-motivated company with the ability to deliver superior service to our global customer base."

Bunge expects to achieve synergies of approximately 20m [euro] to 25m [euro] by the end of the first full year of combined operations, increasing to an annual rate of approximately 45m [euro] to 50m [euro] by the third year.