the brazilian company Minerva bought three of the four plants that its competitor Marfrig, also native of Brazil, It has in Uruguay, in a business of 1,540 million dollars —which includes the acquisition of another 13 refrigerators of the company. With this operation, Minerva approaches the 45% of the country’s total slaughter capacity.
A few days after the Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Competition of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) confirm the purchase of the refrigerator Breeders and Packers Uruguay (BPU) by Minerva — thus making official that 51% of the Uruguayan cattle slaughter would remain in the hands of companies originating from Brazil-, The latter announced a million-dollar business involving the absorption of 16 Marfrig refrigerators, for a total amount of $1.54 billionas reported by Blasina and Associates.
The business includes three of the four plants that Marfrig has in Uruguay: the fridge Cologne, the fridge La Caballada (Jump) and the fridge Inaler (San Jose). Between the three of them, they fish a 18% of all cattle in the countryapproximately, so the impact on Minerva’s operations after the acquisition will be very important after adding 26.6% of the work in recent days by the hand of the BPU.
In this way, and although the sale —the largest transaction in the history of the Brazilian company and the second largest in the meat industry in Brazil- this subject to approval regulatory and competition authorities, Minerva could have almost 45% of the total slaughter capacity of Uruguay.
In addition, it becomes the largest company in the sector in the South American region and with the largest number of plants certified to export to China.
What is Marfrig’s strategy?
According to Fernando Galletti de Queiroz, global president of Minerva Foods, had talks with Marfrig 15 years ago, but only on this occasion did the negotiations lead to a final agreement. The reading of the Brazilian analysts is that, now, both companies retain the corporate Independence, a key difference from previous attempts.
For its part, Marfrig kept the refrigerator tacuarembó in Uruguay, the processing and canning plant that operates in Fray Bentos, and a feedlot in Black river with capacity for 16,000 cattle.
The Brazilian company that leaves a large part of the Uruguayan market to its competitor will, in turn, maintain its brands —it is present in the territory Hamby— and the equivalent to 60% of total income earned for the South American operation in 2022, with double-digit margins. Likewise, it will continue to export to more than 140 countries.
“It is one more stage of this consolidation in the type of product that we believe is more profitable and in growth segments worldwide, such as hamburgers,” he said in this regard. Rui Mendonca, CEO of Marfrig.
Source: Ambito
