Canadian agribusiness giant Viterra has completed the acquisition of Australian company ABB Grain for A$751.7m (US$652.5m).
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Viterra will issue 9.6m new shares to ABB shareholders as well as 68.6m new shares in trust for shareholders who opt to receive Viterra securities that are registered in Australia and can be bought and sold on the Australian stock exchange.
ABB and Viterra signed an implementation agreement on 19 May, under which Viterra proposed to acquire all the issued and outstanding shares in ABB for a mixture of cash and scrip via the scheme.
Mayo Schmidt, president and CEO of Viterra, said: “Viterra is very pleased to announce the official implementation of the scheme and our first day of operation under our transformational combination with ABB. We have already undertaken significant integration planning of our two companies.”
He added: “We are well positioned to support the existing and future needs of both our producer and destination customer bases and the ever-increasing demand for quality foods in Asia and Southeast Asia where populations are rising quickly. Today formally marks our company’s new role as a leading global ingredients supplier, a vision supported and valued by our shareholders.”
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By GlobalDataTrading of the new Viterra shares on the Toronto stock exchange is expected to start at 9:30am (Toronto time) on 24 September.
Following the acquisition, Viterra has appointed four former directors of ABB Grain in order to satisfy a commitment made as part of the merger agreement.
The directors include Perry Gunner, a director of Australian Vintage and Freedom Nutritional Foods; Max Venning, previous deputy chair of ABB’s board; Paul Daniel, previously on the finance and audit committees board of ABB; and Kevin Osborn, deputy chairman of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.
In order to facilitate the appointment of the new directors, Herb Pinder, a long-time Viterra director, has temporarily resigned from the board and will act as an observer until spring 2010. Viterra said it intends to nominate Pinder for re-election as a director at the next annual meeting of shareholders.
