SINGAPORE – Singapore’s Wilmar International said it has acquired a 27.5 per cent stake in Cosumar, Morocco’s sole sugar supplier, for 2.3 billion Moroccan dirhams (S$333 million), expanding its sugar operations into Africa.
Societe Nationale d’Investissement, which sold the stake to Wilmar, will subsequently sell up to a 26.5 per cent stake to a consortium of Moroccan institutional investors, with whom Wilmar will control a 54 per cent stake in Cosumar, Wilmar said in a statement.
Cosumar is the sole operator in Morocco’s sugar industry, and the third-largest sugar producer in Africa with an installed production capacity of 1.6 million tonnes per year.
Wilmar, the world’s largest listed palm oil company, has been rapidly expanding its sugar business and has five sugar refineries in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia with a total annual production volume of more than 1.8 million tonnes. REUTERS
