Panther Metals Regulatory News (PALM)

31 Dec 2009 08:04



Asian Plantations Limited

("APL" or the "Company")

Completion of Acquisition

Asian Plantations Limited (LSE: PALM), a palm oil plantation company with operations in Malaysia, is pleased to confirm that it has completed the acquisition announced on 15 December 2009. The Company is now the legal owner of the entire issued share capital of Jubilant Paradise Sdn Bhd and Incosetia Sdn Bhd, which owns a partly developed palm oil plantation totalling approximately 5,850 hectares in Sarawak, Malaysia (the "Acquisition").

The terms of the Acquisition remain consistent with those announced previously. 

Graeme Brown, APL's Joint Chief Executive Officer, commenting on the completion of the Acquisition, said:

"We are delighted to complete the Acquisition ahead of the previously announced timetable. In addition to a significantly enlarged land bank, APL is now also revenue generating as we are collecting fresh fruit bunches from Incosetia's planted fields. We have already selected the new nursery area for Incosetia and the first seedlings arrive in February for poly-bag planting in preparation for in-field planting by year-end 2010.

In tandem with the completion of the Acquisition, the Company has also conducted a social survey of the adjacent communities to the Incosetia plantation and will initiate, in February, a gravity-fed clean water system for approximately 25 families in two separate longhouses. This water system will be similar to that built by the Company for the Apa Gun communities outside the BJ plantation. The Apa Gun community project supplies clean water, via a 2.1 kilometre piping system, to 30 families in one longhouse community located approximately 14 kilometres from the BJ plantation."

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