Tate & Lyle sells molasses business
W&R Barnett, Northern Ireland’s largest international grain trader, has agreed to acquire the molasses business of Tate & Lyle for £67 million (€79.6m) in cash. Tate & Lyle said it plans to use proceeds from the sale to reduce its net debt.
Molasses comprises the global molasses trading desk of T&L based in London, UK and other worldwide marketing operations together with the UK third party storage operations.
These businesses had external sales of £228 million (€271m) and made an operating profit of £13 million (€15.45m) in the year to 31 March 2010, and had gross assets of £81 million (€96.3m) at that date.
On 1 July 2010, Tate & Lyle announced the disposal of its EU Sugar Refining operations, and its intention to launch processes to sell the remaining businesses within its Sugars division, principally Molasses and Vietnamese sugar.
The sale of Molasses is being announced and the sale of the Vietnamese sugar business is progressing to plan.
Javed Ahmed, Chief Executive of Tate & Lyle said that it was the company’s clear priority to grow its Speciality Food Ingredients business, supported by cash generated from Bulk Ingredients. “This disposal represents another important step as we focus, fix and grow our business,” he said.
Earlier this month, W&R Barnett reached agreement with Origin Enterprises to establish an all-Ireland grain and feed handling, logistics and trading business.
