Nutreco has entered into an agreement to acquire Advit, a South African premix and feed additive company.
Advit is headquartered in Johannesburg and produces a wide range of premixes, farm minerals and animal health products. Trouw Nutrition, Nutreco’s animal nutrition business, entered a strategic alliance with Advit in 2015. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the second half of 2016.
South Africa is the largest and most advanced animal nutrition market in Africa. Advit has a solid market position for all livestock species. It operates countrywide and also exports to neighboring countries.
“With the acquisition of Advit, we further strengthen our presence on the African continent,” said Harm de Wildt, managing director for Nutreco’s operations in EMEA and member of the executive committee. “The company already has a strong position and reputation in the market. We can help it grow further using the Trouw Nutrition market approach of combining technical and application know-how with innovative products, models and services.”
“Based on the experience of the existing strategic alliance we have with Trouw Nutrition, we are convinced that this deal is the best step for the future of Advit. Not only will it enable further growth within South Africa, it also will strengthen our position in neighboring countries,” Christel Coetzee and Deon Elsworth, owners of Advit, said in a joint statement.
Africa strategy
More than half of the projected global population growth in the coming decades will take place in Africa. The continent will have added 1.3 billion people by 2050, roughly equivalent to the current population of China. This investment is one of the steps in Nutreco’s strategy to expand in Africa.
Nutreco entered Africa in 2001 by acquiring a share of the Egyptian company Hendrix Misr, which came under full ownership in 2013 and was renamed Skretting Egypt. Nutreco increased its presence in 2014 through a fish feed joint venture in Nigeria. Earlier this year it announced a fish feed joint venture in Zambia.
