Miller Magazine Issue:114 June 2019

28 NEWS JUNE 2019 ADM continues growth of nutrition portfolio with completion of Ziegler Group acquisition Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) announced that it had completed its acquisition of the Ziegler Group, a Euro- pean industry leader in natural citrus solutions. “The addition, combined with ADM’s recent acquisition of US citrus flavor in- novator Florida Chemical Company, creates a global platform with the ability to serve customers worldwide with innovative citrus solutions.” ADM noted. “Citrus is a key ingredient in any nutrition portfolio – it provides great taste with the natural, clean-label, reduced sugar attributes that today’s health-conscious consumers are looking for,” said Vince Macciocchi, pre- sident of ADM’s Nutrition business. “Combining Ziegler and FCC, and adding ADM’s leading R&D capabilities and global reach, opens up tremendous growth oppor- tunities for us to provide comprehensive and innovative citrus solutions for food, beverage and fragrance cus- tomers around the globe.” With over 50 years’ expe- rience producing high-quality natural citrus oils, extra- cts, concentrates and compounds, Ziegler’s proprietary cold concentration technologies deliver products for customers across Europe, the US and Japan. Oils Information Center. Cofco has nine listed units in Hong Kong, and four trade on mainland Chinese stock exchanges. Founded in 1949, Beijing-based Cofco had sole purview over the country’s agricultural imports until the late 1980s. It has a total oilseed crushing capacity of 21.8 million tons, the largest in Asia, and refinery capacity of 6 million tons. Its soy purchases account for about 20 percent of China’s total imports, its president said in November. Cofco started to build an international trading house in 2014 with a $4 billion buying spree that saw it take control of Nidera BV and the agricultural arm of Noble Group Ltd. While its trading unit, Cofco International Ltd., has been hamstrung by poor results, a $200 million hit from a rogue trader and the dis- covery of a $150 million financial hole in Brazil, its plans for global expansion were revived last year after completing a corporate restructuring. Ma Wenfeng, an analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd., said the overhaul would strengthen the core role of Sinograin as a state grains stockpiler, while allowing its other businesses of more market-oriented operations to be run by Cofco. Still, Cofco may face challenges ahead in ensuring crush margins, Ma said. “The overhaul will expand Cofco’s assets, but not necessarily profitability given the fierce competition of the domestic soy crush industry that’s been suffering excessive capacity” said Ma. Cofco plans to trade 30 million tons of corn by 2020, 5 million tons of sugar and process 20 million tons of soybeans, according to its 13th five-year plan proposed in 2016. Cofco International Chairman Johnny Chi said in March the global trader plans to increase agriculture commodities directly from farmers outside China to 60 million tons per year by 2022 from 40 million tons now. BLOOMBERG