World Grain - May 2014 - 13

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and their origins," the company said. "Nisshin finds these advantages
highly meaningful for our further global expansion of flour milling
businesses. Nisshin will accelerate the expansion of its U.S. businesses with the transaction and continue to focus on expansion of
overseas businesses going forward."
Kazuyoshi Watanabe serves as president and chief executive officer of Miller Milling. Miller Milling is headquartered in Bloomington, near Minneapolis.
The acquisition of the four mills also may be seen as the largest
step yet by Nisshin Seifun Group toward diversifying its business
away from its Japanese milling roots.
"Nisshin has been actively taking initiatives to expand overseas
businesses, including the acquisitions of Miller Milling in March
2012 and Champion Flour Milling Ltd. in February 2013," Nisshin
said. "With the transaction, overseas milling capacity will reach approximately 7,500 tonnes/day (grain based), which accounts for approximately 50% of total milling capacity of Nisshin; nearly equal to
the milling capacity in Japan."
In a 2012 interview with World Grain's sister publication Milling
& Baking News, shortly after the Miller Milling acquisition, Hiroshi
Oeda, president of Nisshin, offered insights into the company's strategic plan dubbed "NNI-120" driving its expansion.
"NNI stands for New Nisshin Innovation," Oeda said in the interview.
"We named our new business plan as NNI-120 because 120 signifies

that 2020 is our 120th year of operation. The objectives of NNI-120 include: 'Achieving $12.5 billion in consolidated sales' with '30% of this
revenue being realized from overseas operations' in the near future.
"In order to carry out these objectives, we plan to invest in those
focused segments and strengthen both flour milling and processed
food business, which are our core competencies, and aggressively
seek opportunities of mergers/acquisitions and business alliances
both domestically and overseas."
Nisshin Seifun Group Inc. is one of Japan's largest food companies,
with annual revenues totaling Y490 billion ($4.8 billion), EBITDA of
Y35.8 billion ($329 million) and net income in fiscal 2013 of Y14 billion ($141 million). Nisshin shares trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
where its current market capitalization is Y322.6 billion ($3.1 billion).
Shares are mainly owned by Japanese and international investment managers. Its third largest shareholder, with a stake of slightly
above 5%, is Yamazaki Baking Co., which also is Nisshin's largest
flour customer.
Nisshin entered flour milling in North America through the purchase of Rogers Foods of British Columbia, and it currently has two
mills in that western province of Canada. It entered the U.S. food
business by establishing a pasta plant in Tacoma, Washington, U.S.,
under the Medallion Foods name. Besides Japan, Canada and the
United States, Nisshin operates flour mills in New Zealand, recently
acquired from Goodman Fielder, and a mill in Thailand.

Ardent partners 'pleased' with Nisshin agreement
OMAHA, NEBRASKA, U.S. - Responding to the announcement by
Miller Milling Co. of a deal to acquire four flour mills from ConAgra
Mills and Cargill, the partners who will form Ardent Mills said they were
"pleased" with the pending transaction and restated their expectation the
formation of Ardent Mills would be completed before the end of June.
The official statement, offered by Becky Niiya, senior director of
communication and external relations for ConAgra Foods, Inc., follows:
"ConAgra Foods, Cargill and CHS are pleased to enter into a purchase agreement with Miller Milling Company - a U.S.-based sub-

sidiary of Tokyo-based Nisshin Flour Milling Inc. and a well-respected
milling operation. The agreement is consistent with the companies'
plan to divest four flour milling facilities in order to proceed with the
formation of Ardent Mills. The sale of all four mills is expected to be
completed prior to or simultaneous with the completion of the Ardent
Mills transaction, which we expect to be in Q2 of calendar year 2014
as planned. Completion of the Ardent Mills transaction remains subject to the conclusion of regulatory review by the U.S. Department
of Justice, financing, and other certain customary closing conditions."

For more information, see Page 114.

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