Largest M&A deals in agriculture: last decade’s top 10 in Ukraine
02 September 2021
A recent ranking prepared by Latifundist.com presents most prominent M&A deals in Ukrainian agricultural sector over the past ten years, which brought about a profound shift in the development of the involved companies or set a new trend on the market. Based on this list, Largescaleagriculture.com has outlined top 10 acquisition deals of the past decade involving Ukrainian agroholdings.
Year | Subject | Purchaser | Vendor | % acquired | Value |
2020 | Rail Transit Kargo Ukraine LLC | Kernel Holding S.A. | Not disclosed | 100% | $64 million |
In detail: with this deal, Ukraine’s largest sunflower oil producer Kernel acquired a rail freight company with 3,000 grain hopper cars and became the owner of the largest rail transport network among private companies countrywide. | |||||
2019 | Perutnina Ptuj d.d. | MHP S.A. | Slovenian Steel Group d.d. | 91% | $250 million |
In detail: with this deal, Ukrainian largest poultry producer MHP acquired its first foreign Europe-based asset specialized in poultry production. | |||||
2018 | Agro-Holding MC | HarvEast | Agrotime Invest Limited | Over 50% | Not disclosed |
In detail: the deal allowed Ukrainian agroholding HarvEast, previously present only in Eastern regions, to extend its activities to Northern part of Ukraine increasing farmland area by 25,000 hectares. | |||||
2018 | Mriya agroholding | Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) | Mriya Farming PLC | 100% | $242 million |
In detail: with the acquisition of a bankrupt Mriya agroholding, SALIC extended its operations in Western Ukraine. The acquired assets were merged with local production capacities (a group of enterprises with around 45,000 hectares of farmland) already owned by SALIC into an agroholding Continental Farmers Group, which currently operates 195,000 hectares and is mainly engaged in cash crop production. | |||||
2017 | Ukrainian Agrarian Investments | Kernel Holding S.A. | ONEXIM Group | 100% | $155 million |
In detail: with this deal, Kernel increased farmland area by 190,000 hectares and extended its storage capacity by 200,000 tonnes. | |||||
2016 | Five grain elevators Glencore | Levano LLP (Prometey) | Renaisco B.V. (Glencore) | Over 85% | Not disclosed |
In detail: the one-time acquisition of five grain elevators from Glencore allowed Ukrainian agricultural producer Prometey with 20,000 hectares under operation to increase its storage capacity from 300,000 tonnes to 1 million tonnes. In total, Prometey has acquired 12 grain elevators from Glencore over the recent years. | |||||
2016 | Vinnytsia Agro Industrial Group | Epicentr K | Volodymyr Bartsos (owner) | 80% | Not disclosed |
In detail: this was the first large acquisition of Epicentr K followed by further rapid accumulation of farmland and storage capacities. At that time, Vinnytsia Agro Industrial Group operated 50,000 hectares of farmland and had storage capacity of 250,000 tonnes. | |||||
2015 | Agrokultura Ukraine | MHP S.A. | Agrokultura AB | 100% | - |
In detail: a barter deal with Russian agroholding Agrokultura AB allowed MHP to exchange its Russia-based enterprise Voronezh Agro Holding (40,000 hectares of farmland, storage capacity of 150,000 tonnes) for an enterprise in Western Ukraine owned by Agrokultura AB with 40,000 hectares of farmland, two grain elevators, and machinery park of 350 vehicles. The deal involved no accompanying monetary payments. | |||||
2013 | Agroprogress Holding | IMC S.A. | Bluerice Limited | Over 50% | $40 million |
In detail: the acquisition of the asset in Chernihiv region of Ukraine allowed Ukrainian agroholding IMC S.A. to double its farmland to 120,000 hectares, to raise its storage capacity 30% to 340,000 tonnes, and eventually to enter the list of Ukraine’s top 10 largest agroholdings. | |||||
2011 | Rise Agroholding | UkrLandFarming | Vitalii Tsekhmistrenko (owner) | 99.46% | Not disclosed |
In detail: of four acquisition deals UkrLandFarming closed in 2010 – 2011, the acquisition of Ukrainian agroholding Rise was the largest and included 180,000 hectares of farmland, storage capacities of 600,000 tonnes, five seed production plants, a sugar factory, and a network of 40 agricultural machinery distributors. |