15th Mar 2006 07:03
Associated British Foods PLC15 March 2006 Associated British Foods plc Statement on discussions with Illovo Sugar Limited For immediate release 15 March 2006 Associated British Foods plc, the international food, ingredients and retailgroup, notes today the announcement by Illovo Sugar Limited as published on theSecurities Exchange News Service of the JSE Limited and confirms that it is indiscussions about a potential transaction that could involve it acquiring a 51%interest in Illovo Sugar Limited. There is no certainty that these discussionswill lead to an offer. Further announcements will be made as appropriate. For further information please contact: Associated British Foods plc Tel: +44 (0)20 7399 6500 John Bason, Finance Director Citigate Dewe Rogerson Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 9571 Jonathan Clare / Chris Barrie / Sara Batchelor Notes to Editors: Associated British Foods plc Associated British Foods plc ("ABF") is a diversified international food,ingredients and retail group with global sales of £5.6 billion and over 42,000employees. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange with a marketcapitalisation of £6.8 billion. It operates in 41 countries with significantbusinesses outside Europe in Australia, China and the US. It has had asuccessful history of international partnerships with minority shareholders.The group operates in four business categories: Primary Food & Agriculture,Grocery, Ingredients and Retail. ABF aims to achieve sustainable leadership positions in markets and businessesthat offer potential for profitable growth. It strives to achieve this througha combination of organic growth and, while maintaining a strict financialdiscipline, the acquisition of complementary businesses. The group has a strongtrack record of successfully completing value adding acquisitions such as ABMauri, its leading international yeast and bakery ingredients business, Mazola,Ovaltine and Littlewoods stores. At the last financial year end ABF had no netdebt on its consolidated balance sheet. British Sugar British Sugar is a wholly owned, substantial and core business within ABF. Ithas sugar operations in the UK, Poland and China which process around 2 milliontonnes of sugar annually. British Sugar is the lowest cost beet sugar processor in the EU and processed1.34 million tonnes of sugar during the last UK campaign. It has marketleadership in the UK and established sales positions elsewhere in the EU and itstwo leading retail brands in the UK are Silver Spoon and Billington's. It has aproven ability to create value through improvement in agricultural yields,operational efficiencies, co-product development and marketing and innovation.It has world class production facilities and technical expertise and Wissingtonin Norfolk is the largest and most efficient beet sugar factory in the world.The UK's first bioethanol plant is currently being constructed at Wissington. British Sugar entered into its first joint venture in the Polish market in 1989.It has since developed its presence considerably. 200,000 tonnes of sugar areprocessed annually and its two facilities include Glinojeck, Poland's highestcapacity and lowest cost beet factory. It has used its expertise to buildPoland's premier retail sugar brand, become a leader in animal feedsco-products, improve agricultural yields and reduce processing cost throughinvestment and process innovation. British Sugar entered the Chinese market in 1995 through a joint venture and nowhas four cane sugar factories with a processing capacity of 550,000 tonnes ofsugar annually. It has dramatically improved agricultural productivity, factoryextraction and sugar yields and has developed a direct industrial customer basewith its supply of European standard sugar. Illovo Illovo is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa with a marketcapitalisation of £510 million (R5.5 billion). Its sales in 2004/05 were £480million (R5.1 billion) and it has a total asset base of £375 million (R4.0billion). It is the largest sugar producer in Africa and one of the world's leading lowcost sugar producers. The company grows and processes sugar cane in SouthAfrica, as well as Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia andproduced 1.9 million tonnes of sugar in 2004/05. It has identified developmentprogrammes to expand this capacity substantially. Illovo currently exports to the EU under the ACP protocol, principally throughSwaziland. With the recently announced changes to the EU sugar regime, Malawi,Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia are classified as LDC countries and will receiveunrestricted access for sugar exports to the EU from 2009. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
AB Foods