Acquisition

2 May 2006 13:52

Tata Tea Limited02 May 2006 TATA TEA ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF JEMCABY TATA TEA (GB) LTD., U.K. Tata Tea Ltd.'s subsidiary, Tata Tea (GB) Ltd., U.K.. has signed a definitiveagreement to acquire the assets of market leading tea company in the CzechRepublic, JEMCA, from food processing company, Alima Znackova Potravina, a.s.The acquisition has been funded by The Tetley Group. JEMCA has 26.6% volume share of the tea market in the Czech Republic* andturnover of 300 million Czech Koruna (around US$ 12.5 million). JEMCA will continue to pack teas at its production facility in Jemnice, CzechRepublic and continue to trade under the JEMCA brand name. In a statement, Mr. Ken Pringle, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief ExecutiveOfficer of The Tetley Group, and Director of Tata Tea said :- "This acquisition is a further development of our plans to grow the Tata Group'stea business around the world. It gives us a market leading position in an areawhere tea consumption is high and where we have been previously unrepresented.The experience and skills of JEMCA and Tetley complement each other well andwill combine to create a significant presence in Eastern Europe." * Source AC Nielsen November 2005 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange