DSM Is in Exclusive Talks to Buy Cargill’s Cultures Unit

Royal DSM NV (DSM), the world’s largest vitamin maker, said it’s in exclusive talks to buy Cargill Inc.’s cultures and enzymes business in an effort to gain a bigger share of a 1 billion-euro ($1.3 billion) market.

“A possible combination of the Cargill cultures and enzymes business with the dairy business of DSM Food Specialties would be highly complementary, creating a strong global player,” Heerlen, Netherlands-based DSM said in a statement today.

The Cargill division supplies the dairy and meat industries and has factories in Wisconsin and France, generating sales of about 45 million euros a year, DSM said. The acquisition would be the eighth by DSM’s nutrition unit since the Dutch company started transforming in 2010 from a commodity-chemical manufacturer into a maker of enzymes, specialty plastics and nutritional supplements, it said.

Industrywide demand for cultures and enzymes is growing steadily at more than 5 percent a year, DSM said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maaike Noordhuis in Amsterdam at mnoordhuis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net