BASF sells feed premix sites to Nutreco

The concerned premix sites are in Europe (UK, Poland, and Italy), Asia
(Indonesia, China), North America (USA, Mexico) and Central America (Guatemala).
The sale affects 435 employees, who will transfer to Nutreco. The sale is an
important step in the global restructuring of the Fine Chemicals division of
BASF.

Nutreco considers especially the BASF business in the UK – ‘Frank
Wright’ – as an important asset given its specific role as supplier to the pet
food industry.

More flexibility
“The divestment of the animal
nutrition premix business is part of our strategy to operate efficiently and
flexibly in the food and feed markets and, thus, to position BASF Fine Chemicals as a sustainable feed ingredient
supplier to the feed industry,” said Dr. Wolfgang Büchele, head of the BASF Fine
Chemicals division.

The consolidation of human and animal nutrition into
one nutrition business in November 2006 was a first step in this direction. BASF
is focusing on producing and marketing important vitamins, carotenoids, enzymes
and organic acids.

Growth of core business
“This is an
important step for Nutreco in a time where we have just mobilized all our
resources for a full focus on the growth of our core businesses animal nutrition
and fish feed for aquaculture,” said Jürgen Steinemann, Nutreco‘s Chief
Operating Officer.

“Reinforcing our strongholds in these growth markets
with BASF’s operations will help us to gain momentum for further expansion in
the Americas and Asia.

“At the same time our leading position in Europe
in premix and feed specialties is now strengthened with the contribution of the
mixing business of BASF in important animal feed markets.”

Remaining
small businesses
This sale only covers the majority of BASF’s animal
nutrition premix business. The remaining part of the premix business at other
sites is a lot smaller and mostly locally focused.

“We are working to
find alternatives for these sites, too. Further divestments to potential local
buyers are among the options being considered,” Büchele added.

BASF is
the world’s leading chemical company. Its portfolio ranges from chemicals,
plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals to
crude oil and natural gas. The company has over 95,000 employees and posted
sales of more than €42.7 billion in 2005.

Double sales of Trouw
Nutrition
With this new step, Nutreco’s premix and feed specialities
business – Trouw
Nutrition International – with total annual sales in 2006 of € 550
million will almost double its sales in premixes to € 400 million and will
become the number two player in the global premix industry.

After
integration and transformation the acquired BASF businesses will contribute € 10
million in operating profit to Nutreco in 2009 mainly due to cost synergies. It
is expected that the acquired businesses will have a similar margin in two
years’ time as Nutreco’s existing premix and feed specialities
operations.

In the past 20 months Nutreco has acquired feed specialities
businesses in Japan, Mexico, Russia, China, India and the Netherlands. In
Brazil, Nutreco established a new feed specialities production
facility.

To subscribe to the free AllAboutFeed newsletter click here.