AB Foods Regulatory News (ABF)

22 Nov 2007 07:01

Associated British Foods PLC22 November 2007 Associated British Foods plc Illovo Sugar announces £100 million investment in Mali For immediate release 22 November 2007 Illovo Sugar announced on 12 November that it had approved an investment in thesugar industry in Mali. Associated British Foods plc ("ABF"), the internationalfood, ingredients and retail group holds a 51% stake in Illovo Sugar. Illovo Sugar will hold a 70% stake in an investment of 1.4 billion rand (£100million) for the construction of a new sugar mill, an ethanol plant and anelectricity co-generation unit in Mali. The remaining stake will be held by theGovernment of Mali and private investors. Illovo will also manage a MaliGovernment-sponsored agricultural development to produce the 1.5 million tonnesof sugar cane per annum required to supply this new facility. Sugar production will begin in December 2009, reaching full capacity two yearslater. The mill will ultimately produce 200,000 tonnes of sugar per annum andthe ethanol plant 15 million litres per annum. George Weston, Chief Executive of Associated British Foods, said:"This investment in Mali follows Illovo's recently announced expansion in Zambiaand is further evidence of the region's development potential and our commitmentto it." For further information please contact: Associated British FoodsJohn Bason, Finance DirectorTel: 020 7399 6500 Geoff Lancaster, Head of External AffairsTel: 07860 56 26 59 Citigate Dewe Rogerson:Jonathan Clare/Chris Barrie/Hannah SewardTel: 020 7638 9571 Notes to Editors 1. Associated British Foods is a diversified international food,ingredients and retail group with sales of £6.8billion and 85,000 employees in43 countries. It has significant businesses outside Europe in southern Africa,the US, China and Australia. Its aim is to achieve strong, sustainable leadership positions in markets thatoffer potential for profitable growth. We look to achieve this through acombination of growth of existing businesses, acquisition of complementary newbusinesses and achievement of high levels of operating efficiency. The grouphas established a track record of successful value adding acquisitions includinga 51% stake in Illovo Sugar, Africa's biggest cane sugar producer with extensiveagricultural and manufacturing operations in six African countries, AB Mauri(its leading international yeast and bakery ingredients business), Littlewoodsstores for Primark and the grocery brands Mazola, Ovaltine and Patak's. 2. Illovo Sugar, which is listed on the JSE, is the largestcane sugar producer in Africa and one of the world's lowest cost producers. Itis the leading producer in South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Swaziland and has astrong and growing presence in Tanzania and Mozambique. It produced 1.7 milliontonnes of sugar in the 2006/7 season and has development programmes to expandits capacity substantially. 3. British Sugar is a substantial business within ABF. It hasoperations in the UK, Poland, China and southern Africa which process some 4million tonnes of sugar annually. It is the most efficient sugar producer inEurope and has a proven ability to create value through improvement inagricultural yields, operational efficiencies, co-product development, marketingand product innovation. It has world class production facilities and technicalexpertise. The largest and most efficient beet sugar factory in the world is atWissington in Norfolk and this is also the site for the UK's first bioethanolplant. British Sugar has four cane sugar mills in Guangxi province insouthern China and sugar production exceeded 0.5 million tonnes in 2006/7. Itannounced on 24 August 2007 its first investment in the beet sugar industry innorth east China. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange