Cargill Plans to Acquire Animal Nutrition Giant Provimi for €1.5 billion

This acquisition would mark a significant step in Cargill’s animal nutrition growth strategy and underlines its commitment to continued long term investment to meet the needs of our customers around the world.

Aug 16 2011 --- Cargill has made a binding offer to acquire Provimi, the global animal nutrition company, for an enterprise value of €1.5 billion from Permira funds, the private equity firm which owns Provimi. Provimi has agreed, on an exclusive basis, to commence the necessary Works Council consultations and appropriate regulatory approvals.

Cargill plans to acquire Provimi’s worldwide animal nutrition business, which has operations in 26 countries and employs more than 7,000 people across Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. The acquisition would strengthen and expand Cargill’s existing operations creating a global leader in animal nutrition.

Provimi successfully completed the sale of the Pet Food business in June and is now a purely Animal Nutrition business in line with its stated strategy.

“The combination of Cargill and Provimi would create a new, world class animal nutrition offering with the expertise to offer customers a full range of enhanced products and services,” says Paul Conway, Cargill vice chairman. “This acquisition would mark a significant step in Cargill’s animal nutrition growth strategy and underlines our commitment to continued long term investment to meet the needs of our customers around the world. We look forward to working with Provimi.”

Cargill and Provimi have complementary market positions and strengths. Provimi has broad nutritional expertise, and a wide portfolio of premix, additives and ingredients; Cargill’s animal nutrition business brings expertise in compound feed, supply chain and risk management as well as access to global trends, knowledge and information from across the agricultural supply chain. The combination of the businesses would provide an increased range of capabilities and a global network to service customers.

“Bringing together the talents and expertise of both companies is expected to open up new innovation and market development opportunities”, comments Todd Hall, Cargill corporate vice president. “Provimi’s excellence in cutting edge technology and application, alongside Cargill’s global supply chain and market insights should enable us together to develop and deliver a range of innovative, high quality products and services to customers.”

Ton van der Laan, chairman and group chief executive officer of Provimi says: “Cargill provided a clear and compelling case to become our new owner and we believe that a combination of its animal nutrition business with Provimi will create a stronger business, improving the delivery of innovative nutritional solutions to our customers. With Cargill’s global presence and committed focus on animal nutrition, we can take Provimi to the next stage of its development. For our people this is also a great outcome. Cargill can offer many opportunities and recognizes the talent within Provimi. We very much look forward to working with our new owners in the future.”

Cargill has a long history in the animal nutrition business, dating back to feed sales in 1884. The company currently has animal feed operations in 26 countries worldwide offering both branded and customized feed products and services, as well as ingredients for feed manufacturers and retailers.

At the end of July, Royal DSM and Nutreco responded to media speculation regarding a possible acquisition of Provimi. DSM and Nutreco confirmed that for this purpose they have decided to jointly explore the possibility to acquire Provimi, should this opportunity arise. The two companies were seeking to split up the asset that could carry a price tag of more than 1.8 billion euros ($2.6 billion).