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Food giant COFCO fully acquires Noble Agri

Xinhua, December 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

China's state-owned foodstuff conglomerate COFCO Corp. announced Wednesday that it will fully acquire Noble Agri from Hong Kong energy and commodity company Noble Group.

In an agreement signed Tuesday, COFCO agreed to buy Noble Agri's 49 percent stake, held by Noble Group, for 750 million U.S. dollars.

As COFCO already acquired a 51-percent stake in Noble Agri in 2014, the mainland agriculture company will fully own Noble Agri upon the completion of the transaction.

"Noble Agri will serve as COFCO's overseas arm, which is expected to help connect grain purchase in the upstream of the industry with processing and distribution in the downstream," said a COFCO statement.

COFCO chair Frank Gaoning Ning said the acquisition will 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 despite the depressed global agricultural commodity market," said Ning.

"The consolidation of our ownership is a strong step toward our guiding vision: To be a world class global agri-business," said Matt Jansen, CEO of Noble Agri.

By the end of 2014, Noble Agri delivered 46 million tonnes of agricultural products globally, with 45 asset locations and about 9,500 employees in 29 countries. Endi