by Ramkumar Agricultural sector-focussed Agriterra Ltd said in August it planned to buy West African palm oil company Equatorial Biofuels (Guernsey) Ltd from Equatorial Palm Oil Plc for about $12 million in cash and stock. The company, which is focussed in central and southern Africa, said Equatorial Biofuels, located in Liberia, would complement its existing grain processing and cattle ranching in Mozambique. Agriterra, a former oil and gas explorer under the name White Nile Ltd, said it would pay $2.5 million in cash and issue 110 million shares and that it had signed a memorandum of understanding. "By diversifying our product range to include food stuffs such as crude palm oil, which is used in a plethora of products such as margarine, chocolate and zero-trans fat cooking oil, we enable year round processing of a variety of products," the company said in a statement. There is potential for early cash flow from EBF from the reactivation of up to 10,000 hectares of existing plantations. EBF has also established strong relationships with local and regional government, with a 50-year investment agreement signed and ratified by the Liberian government, Agriterra said
Reuters