Bunge and Wilmar to form joint venture in Vietnam

Accordingly, Bunge will sell 45 per cent of its Vietnamese crush operations to Wilmar, creating a three-party joint venture with Bunge and Wilmar as equal, 45 per cent shareholders, and soybean meal distributor Quang Dung, a majority owner of feed miller Green Feed, retaining its 10 per cent stake in the operations.

The joint venture connects Bunge’s upstream crushing capabilities to Wilmar’s downstream oil refining and consumer products business with Green Feed’s feed milling and marketing activities, which will enable increased participation in the domestic feed milling industry.

“Bunge is excited to partner with Wilmar, the largest downstream edible oils player in
Vietnam,” said Soren Schroder, CEO of Bunge Limited. “The collaboration will create increased operating, marketing, and logistics synergies across the Vietnamese oils and soybean meal value chains, and help us remain a low-cost operator with the highest efficiency possible.”

“Bunge is a natural match for us. In Vietnam, it is the largest producer of soybean oil and Wilmar is a major buyer,” said Kuok Khoon Hong, chairman and CEO of Wilmar. “The soybean meal distribution capabilities of the joint venture also complement Wilmar’s animal feed ingredients business in Vietnam, including rice and wheat bran, palm kernel and copra expeller, canola meal, and feed oils.”

Bunge Limited buys, sells, stores, and transports oilseeds and grains, and processes oilseeds to make protein meal for animal feed and edible oil products for commercial customers and consumers; produces sugar and ethanol from sugarcane; mills wheat, corn, and rice to make ingredients used by food companies; and sells fertilizer in South America. Founded in 1818, the company is headquartered in White Plains, New York. It operates in over 40 countries with approximately 35,000 employees.

Wilmar International Limited, founded in 1991 and headquartered in Singapore, operates in oil palm cultivation, oilseed crushing, edible oils refining, sugar milling and refining, specialty fats, oleochemicals, biodiesel and fertilizer manufacturing as well as rice and flour milling. At the core of Wilmar’s strategy is an integrated agribusiness model that encompasses the entire value chain of the agricultural commodity business, from cultivation, processing, merchandising to manufacturing of a wide range of branded agricultural products. It has over 500 manufacturing plants and an extensive distribution network covering China, India, Indonesia, and some 50 other countries and has a multinational workforce of about 92,000 people.