Australian food giant Goodman Fielder said this week that it is on track to divest its milling and gelatin assets and is proceeding as planned with a second tranche share buyback following other asset sales, reports IndustrySearch.com.
Australia's biggest food company has confirmed plans to extend its current on market share buyback to a total of $200 million (€118m) by March 2003. It said the buyback would fulfil Goodman Fielder's commitment to use the proceeds from the sale of Leiner Davis Gelatin to improve returns to shareholders.
Earlier this year, Goodman Fielder won United States Federal Trade Commission approval for the sale of 75 per cent of its Leiner Davis gelatin business to German-based gelatin company DGF Stoess for US$112.5 million.
Corporate affairs director Robert Hadler said the planned sale of retained US and Argentinian Leiner operations was progressing according to plan. In March, Goodman Fielder valued the two sites - a pork skin gelatin plant at Davenport in Iowa and a beef skin gelatin plant at Santa Fe in Argentina - at around US$57.5 million.
"We're still looking to divest those two sites, we need to go through a number of stages before we reach a sale and that includes putting both of those two sites together as one business - we're in the process of doing that," Hadler said.
He added an information memorandum would be put together on the combined gelatin business before the offer and due diligence processes. The divestment was planned to take place by June 2003.