World Grain - April 2014 - 12

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COFCO buys 51% of Nidera
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - COFCO Corp. and Nidera on
March 23 signed an agreement in which COFCO will acquire 51%
of Nidera and establish a strategic cooperation.
The signing of the largest ever strategic cooperation by agricultural enterprises from the two countries was conducted during Chinese
President Xi Jinping's first official visit to the Netherlands, becoming
the symbol of an in-depth Sino-Dutch achievement in the agricultural industry as well as a new driving force in promoting bilateral
trade and economic development between the two countries.
The cooperation is the largest ever international acquisition in the
history of the Chinese agricultural industry. COFCO and Nidera will
establish channels to share market information and initiate cooperation in areas such as seed business.
Nidera was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1920, and has
since developed into a major international agribusiness and trading
company with an annual turnover in excess of $17 billion, trade volume over 52 million tonnes, origination purchase volume over 11 million tonnes and agri-technological product sales over 954,000 tonnes.
Soybeans, wheat and corn are the major commodities traded by
Nidera. With an advanced germplasm pool, Nidera has developed a
close partnership with farmers through providing seed, fertilizer and
farm chemicals. By December 2013, Nidera had 62 subsidiaries, and
more than 3,700 employees in over 18 major exporting and importing countries.
Nidera said it has made consistent efforts to establish and improve
its storage and logistic network in key global grain production areas
in North and South America, actively promoting development of its
grain and oilseeds, seeds, fertilizers and farm chemicals businesses.
Nidera has a comprehensive storage and logistics network in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and other South American regions. It has inland
storage capacity of 1.27 million tonnes, of which 477,000 tonnes is
in Argentina and 587,000 tonnes is in Brazil; annual throughput capacity of 13.53 million tonnes, of which 5.5 million tonnes is in Argentina and 3.03 million tonnes is in Brazil. Its storage and logistics

facilities also cover North American and European areas such as the
U.S., Britain, Spain, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.
As China's leading agricultural products and foodstuff company,
COFCO, with its 60-year history and a fully-integrated value chain
model, has built China's largest food logistics network by its wide
coverage and nationwide layout of domestic storage and logistics
nodes. It has also established all types of processing facilities in China's key agricultural areas and sales area, with sales outlets penetrating China's cities and villages.
Currently, the basic pattern of global agricultural trade flow is
from the Americas into Asia, and the supply from emerging markets
has been growing rapidly. Brazil and Argentina takes more account
in exporting markets of agriculture products such as soybeans and
corn. COFCO said it enjoys a long history of cooperation with Nidera, importing agriculture products from Argentina since the beginning of the 1960s, and has continued to maintain a sound business
partnership which forms a solid foundation of COFCO's overseas
grain trade network.
The investment into Nidera enables COFCO to extend its value
chain overseas, to access the core of the world's grain market value
chain, and also opened up the Chinese market opportunities to Nidera from COFCO's domestic network of grain warehousing, logistics, processing and sales.
Nidera Chief Executive Officer Ton van der Laan said he is confident in this collaboration and that Nidera values the huge market
size and growth potential in China and Asia, and COFCO's fullyintegrated value chain model is a great attraction.
Frank Ning, chairman of COFCO, has indicated that the investment in Nidera will enhance COFCO's global presence in grain storage, logistics and processing facilities and facilitate the establishment of a global value chain. He said the synergy associated with the
consolidation of COFCO and Nidera will establish a stable grain corridor linking the global biggest grain origination markets and Asian
emerging markets with the largest growing demand of grain.

E.U. compound feed production down
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - Compound feed production in the E.U.28 in 2013 was estimated at 153.8 million tonnes, slightly less than in
2012, according to data provided by members of the European Feed
Manufacturers' Federation (FEFAC).
While pig feed production dropped by 1.7%, cattle and poultry feed have seen their production grow respectively by 0.8%
and 0.6%.
As a consequence, poultry feed consolidated its position as
the leading segment of E.U. compound feed production slightly
above pig feed.
The most important factors that have weighed on the E.U. feed
demand in 2013 were the cool weather in spring, which impacted
on availability of forages in a large number of countries and the still
fragile economic situation of the pig sector, which, along with the
implementation of the group-housing requirements for sows, affect12

ed the resilience of the pig production.
Among the largest producing countries, the U.K. and Poland performed rather well, with annual growth of 5% and 3%, respectively,
while Germany and Italy remained stable and France, Spain and the
Netherlands saw their production fall by 1%.
Germany strengthened its position as the leading E.U. country in
terms of total compound feed production ahead of France and Spain.
The new E.U. member state, Croatia, has seen its compound feed production fall by 7% from 635,000 to 590,000 tonnes compared to 2012.
FEFAC market experts foresee a stabilization in poultry feed
production, a further reduction in pig feed production (-0.5%) and
a more significant reduction in cattle feed demand due to better expected weather conditions for grasslands and forages production
(-1%). Overall, this would lead to a 1% decrease in compound feed
production in 2014 versus 2013.
April 2014 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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World Grain - April 2014

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