Wilmington, Delaware and White
Plains, New York
January 6, 2003
DuPont and Bunge Limited
today announced that they intend to form an alliance to
significantly grow their agriculture and nutrition businesses.
The alliance will include:
- a joint venture for the global
production and distribution of specialty food ingredients,
beginning with soy proteins and lecithins;
- a biotechnology agreement to
jointly develop and commercialize soybeans with improved
quality traits;
- an alliance to develop a
broader offering of services and products to farmers.
The joint venture, Solae L.L.C.,
will participate in the rapidly growing market for healthy and
great tasting food proteins. It will provide a broad offering of
soy ingredient products to better fit customer needs, including
textured vegetable proteins, soy concentrates and isolates and
specialty lecithins. DuPont will contribute its Protein
Technologies food ingredients business for a majority interest
in the joint venture. In exchange for its specialty food
ingredients businesses, Bunge will receive a 28 percent interest
in the joint venture plus an estimated $260 million in cash, to
be funded by joint venture debt, and will have the right to
increase its ownership to 40 percent based upon a pre-agreed
formula. The joint venture's board will be made up of four
members, two each from DuPont and Bunge.
Initially, global revenues of Solae L.L.C. are expected to
exceed $800 million annually. The joint venture, which will be
based in St. Louis, Mo., is scheduled to start up later this
year, subject to negotiation of definitive agreements, which
will contain customary closing conditions including regulatory
approvals.
"DuPont is pleased to form this alliance with Bunge," said
Charles O. Holliday, Jr., DuPont chairman and chief executive
officer. "It is an important step in meeting our goals to grow
our company in key markets and expand our food and nutrition
offerings to better meet customer needs."
"This alliance brings DuPont's strength in science and new
product development together with Bunge's strength in the
farm-to-consumer food chain," said Alberto Weisser, chairman and
CEO of Bunge. "Together, our two companies will be better able
to deliver value by linking farmers and consumers worldwide to
provide high-quality, nutritious alternatives in the fast
growing, value-added foods market."
Solae L.L.C. will combine complementary capabilities and assets
along the value chain in production, sourcing, marketing and
distribution on four continents, and its broader product lines
will enable the joint venture to provide better solutions to
customers. The joint venture also is expected to increase the
efficiency of the partners' facilities by providing better
opportunities to expand capacity and production.
"This joint venture will provide tremendous growth opportunities
by enabling us to compete more broadly in the large protein and
functional ingredients markets globally," said J. Erik Fyrwald,
vice president and general manager - DuPont Nutrition & Health.
"In addition, the complementary strengths of our two companies
will allow us to use advanced breeding, production and
processing technologies to develop new and improved food
ingredients, providing consumers with healthier and great
tasting proteins to meet their growing needs worldwide."
"This joint venture creates a premier global ingredients
company, with a very competitive product portfolio and
manufacturing expertise. Its growth will be driven by the
replacement of meat and dairy proteins in a wide range of food
applications," said Drew Burke, managing director - Bunge
Ingredients and New Business Development.
Fyrwald will be chairman of the joint venture and Burke will be
vice chairman. Stephan B. Tanda, currently president of DuPont
Protein Technologies, will be chief executive officer of Solae
L.L.C. Theodore P. Fox III, currently controller of Bunge, will
be chief financial officer.
The biotechnology agreement will combine DuPont's broad
strengths in science, including leading positions in plant
science and modern biology, with Bunge's proven capability to
transform oilseeds and grains into value-added products for its
global customer base in the food and animal feed sectors.
Initial focus of the agreement will be on soybeans.
The alliance on production agriculture will bring together two
of the most trusted names in agribusiness that individually have
outstanding relationships and provide significant value to
farmers worldwide. By working together, DuPont and Bunge will
offer a broad range of products and services to meet customers'
needs with efforts initially focused on South America and Asia.
Bunge Limited is an integrated, international agribusiness
and food company operating in the farm-to-consumer food chain
with worldwide distribution capabilities and primary operations
in North America, South America and Europe. Headquartered in
White Plains, N.Y., Bunge has over 24,000 employees and
locations in 28 countries. Bunge is the largest processor of
soybeans in the Americas, the world's leading oilseed processing
company, the largest producer and supplier of fertilizers to
farmers in South America and the world's leading seller of
bottled vegetable oils to consumers.
DuPont Agriculture & Nutrition is comprised of DuPont Crop
Protection, Pioneer Hi-bred
International, Inc., DuPont Protein Technologies and DuPont
Qualicon. Annual sales in 2001 exceeded $4.3 billion.
DuPont (NYSE: DD) is a 200-year-old science company offering
innovative products, technologies and services that improve the
lives of people everywhere. Headquartered in Wilmington, Del.,
DuPont delivers science-based solutions to markets including
agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety and
protection, home and construction, transportation, apparel, home
and textiles.
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