Tate & Lyle Sells Molasses Business
Tate & Lyle is selling its Molasses business to W&R Barnett for £67m in cash. Molasses comprises the global molasses trading desk based in London, UK and other worldwide marketing operations together with the UK third party storage operations. These businesses had external sales of £228m and made an operating profit of £13m in the year to March 31st 2010, and had gross assets of £81m at that date. The sale excludes historic UK pension assets and liabilities and, after costs and subject to movements in exchange rates, is expected to give rise to a small book profit on disposal.
Javed Ahmed, chief executive of Tate & Lyle.
The proceeds from the disposal will be used to reduce Tate & Lyle’s net debt. Completion is expected to occur in the next few weeks.
In July 2010, Tate & Lyle announced the disposal of its EU Sugar Refining operations, and its intention to sell the remaining businesses within its Sugars division, principally Molasses and Vietnamese sugar. The sale of the Vietnamese sugar business is progressing to plan.
“Tate & Lyle’s clear priority is to grow its Speciality Food Ingredients business, supported by cash generated from Bulk Ingredients. This disposal represents another important step as we focus, fix and grow our business,” says Javed Ahmed, chief executive of Tate & Lyle.
