Olam International’s wholly owned subsidiary Olam West Coast has entered a deal to sell the real estate assets of its California onion and garlic processing facility to Mesirow Financial for US$110.3 million, the agri-business company said in a filing to SGX Monday.
In addition, Olam agreed to pay part of the annual revenue from operating the assets with Chicago-based investment management firm Mesirow for a 25-year period, the filing said.
“As a large, leading financial services firm in the U.S., Mesirow has been a long-term partner of many large corporations in real estate transactions so I am confident our partnership will go a long way towards creating value for our respective stakeholders,” Greg Estep, Olam’s managing director and CEO of the spices unit, said in the statement.
“I am excited about our next phase of growth as we can now redeploy part of the capital released for investments in product innovation and value-added services to create further value for our customers,” Estep added.
The deal is expected to be completed in December, Olam said.
Other deals
Olam added that it is currently in various discussions for divesting and/or restructuring various assets and businesses as part of its strategic plan, with some of those talks possibly leading to concluded deals this year. Olam said it couldn’t quantify the financial impact yet.
“Shareholders should keep this disclosure in mind when trading in the shares of the company,” Olam said.
