Mitsui to Acquire Stake in ETC Group for ￥30 Billion

Mitsui & Co Ltd (Mitsui) has made the decision to acquire a part of shares in ETC Group Limited (ETG) and has subsequently entered into a number of agreements, including a share transfer agreement with a total acquisition price of approximately 30 billion yen.

ETG will become an equity-method affiliated company, and Mitsui shall be involved in important managerial decision-making processes. With its headquarters in Dubai, ETG has business bases in 330 locations across 36 countries, concentrated mainly in East Africa and countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and a wide-range of business operations which include agricultural products (from origination & processing through to storage & import/export), sales of agricultural supplies (fertilizers, agrochemicals, seeds, etc), as well as the manufacture and sale of foodstuffs.

One of ETG's views is "If farmers grow, we grow too" and, with the goal of enabling farms to grow and become independent, the company has expanded its food- and agriculture-related business over the past 50 years.

ETG is the leading company in East Africa in handling fertilizers as well as pulses (i.e. beans excluding soybeans and peanuts), a major source of protein in Southwest Asia (India, etc.) and one of world-leaders of sesame trading.

Mitsui has specified "Nutrition and Agriculture" as one new growth area in which it possesses considerable strength as identified in its new Medium-Term Management Plan and has been making contributions towards increasing global food yields via its business activities in agricultural supplies (e.g. agrochemicals and fertilizers), crop trading, feed additives and livestock.

With this investment, Mitsui will be assigned a number of ETG director posts and establish a new internal organization dedicated to the promotion of ETG related businesses, as well as the further expansion of the nutrition and agriculture business in Africa and Indian Ocean Rim nations.