COFCO Corporation Acquires 100% of Noble Agri

04 Jan 2016 --- COFCO Corporation and Noble Group reached an agreement on December 22, 2015, under which COFCO Corporation’s subsidiary COFCO International Limited (CIL) will acquire Noble Agri’s 49% stake held by Noble Group for US$750 million. Upon the completion of the transaction, CIL will hold a 100% stake in Noble Agri, which will be renamed as COFCO Agri.

Mr. Frank Gaoning Ning, Chairman of COFCO Corporation, said, “The acquisition will greatly accelerate COFCO’s internationalization and global positioning. COFCO is fully confident in the new management team and still bullish on the long-term performance upon the integration of Noble Agri into COFCO Corporation despite the depressed global agricultural commodity market for the time being.”

Mr. Yusuf Alireza, CEO of Noble Group, said, “I am pleased to see that COFCO Corporation and Noble Group have reached another agreement. We believe that these assets will be better developed after being seamlessly integrated into COFCO’s global positioning.”

“The consolidation of our ownership is a strong step towards our guiding vision: to be a multi-flag world class global agri-business,” said Matt Jansen, CEO of Noble Agri, “The base we build on – our global reach, our operations in 29 countries – positions us to reach that goal.”

Since its acquisition of 51% of Noble Agri’s shares in 2014, COFCO Corporation has been actively engaged in resource consolidation to optimize asset allocation and boost its profitability. Noble Agri will become COFCO Corporation’s 100% fully owned overseas purchase platform and contribute to further optimization of COFCO Coporation’s global value chain configuration by linking its upstream origination and trading operations with the downstream processing and distribution capabilities of COFCO Corporation and its affiliates.

Referring to this acquisition, Mr. Ton van der Laan, CEO of Nidera, said, "COFCO Corporation is our majority shareholder. There is intensive and good cooperation between COFCO and Nidera on many important topics. For the foreseeable future, Nidera will be working as a separate entity within COFCO Corporation and have full focus on serving its customers in the best possible way.”

Noble Agri: In 2014, a consortium led by COFCO Corporation acquired 51% stake in Noble Agri. By the end of the year, Noble Agri had sales of $14.9 billion, and delivered 46 million tons of products globally, with 45 asset locations and 9,500 employees in 29 countries. In May 2015, Matt Jansen, who had abundant experience in agriculture industry, was appointed as CEO of Noble Agri. Noble Agri engages in agricultural trading and processing businesses, which it originates from surplus producing regions such as South America, North America, South Africa, East Europe and Australia, to supply regions with high demand such as China, Asia and the Middle East. Noble Agri owns and operates logistics and processing assets in strategic locations within key global trade flows.

Nidera is a major international agribusiness and trading company with an annual turnover in excess of USD 17 billion. Nidera was founded in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) in 1920, with its early activities focusing on grain and foodstuffs merchandising in the regions from which it took its acronym: Nederland, (East) Indies, Deutschland, England, Russia, and Argentina. Currently Nidera has domestic and international operations in 18 major export and import countries and distributes its products to more than 60 countries in the world. On Feb 2014, a consortium led by COFCO Corporation acquired 51% stake of Nidera.

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