Spanish Billionaire Banuelos Seeking to Merge Brazilian Agriculture Units
Spanish billionaire Enrique Banuelos is seeking to merge his Brasil Ecodiesel Industria & Comercio de Biocombustiveis & Oleos Vegetais SA with Vanguarda do Brasil SA to create a biodiesel and crop producer with a combined value of 2.16 billion reais ($1.4 billion).
Ecodiesel’s board is likely to make a decision on the proposed merger within 60 days, the Sao Paulo-based company said today in a regulatory filing. Vanguarda is valued at 1.2 billion reais and Ecodiesel at about 964.9 million, according to the statement. The Ecodiesel valuation is about 6 percent higher than yesterday’s closing price in Sao Paulo trading.
Banuelos’s Veremonte Participacoes SA indirectly owns a controlling stake in both Ecodiesel, a biodiesel producer, and a 50 percent stake in Vanguarda, a soybeans, cotton and corn producer in Brazil. Brazilian farmer Otaviano Pivetta, who is Vanguarda’s controlling shareholder, plans to take a 32 percent stake in the resulting company, according to the statement.
Banuelos amassed a fortune during the Spanish housing boom after shares in his Astroc Mediterraneo SA construction company surged. Vanguarda plants 230,000 hectares (568,300 acres) of soybeans, corn and cotton in Brazil.
Brasil Ecodiesel shares rose 3.6 percent, or 3 centavos, at 87 centavos at 10:27 a.m. in Sao Paulo trading.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lucia Kassai in Sao Paulo at lkassai@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net.
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