Global agribusiness giant Bunge Global has reached an agreement with international soya ingredients supplier Solae to acquire most of the assets related to the lecithin, soya protein concentrate, and crush businesses of its subsidiary International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), World Grain wrote.
US-based IFF is a global flavours, fragrances, food ingredients, health and biosciences solutions provider.
The transaction included operations that generated approximately US$240M in revenue in 2024, IFF said on 5 August.
Subject to closing adjustments and conditions, the agreement was expected to close by the end of 2025, IFF said. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“The sale aligns with IFF’s strategy to strengthen its portfolio and supports the ongoing evaluation of strategic alternatives for its Food Ingredients segment, with a focus on maximising shareholder value,” the company said.
During a conference call with analysts following IFF’s 6 August earnings report, the company’s CEO and director J Erik Fyrwald was reported as saying in a 12 August World Grain report that the soya crush, soya protein concentrate and lecithin products were a “better fit with Bunge”.
“They were low single-digit EBITDA margins for us, and they were distracting from our very differentiated isolated soya protein business, which now we can focus on driving the application development … that’s going to improve our margins in the Food Ingredients business significantly and allow us to focus where we need to focus,” Fyrwald said.
Within its Agribusiness segment, Bunge processes oilseeds – mainly soyabeans, rapeseed, canola and sunflowerseed into vegetable oils and protein meals, principally for the food, animal feed and biofuel industries.
The Missouri-based company, which completed an $8.2bn merger with Viterra on 2 July, has a particularly strong local presence in the three largest soyabean producing countries in the world: Argentina, Brazil and the USA, World Grain wrote.
