Australian agribusiness GrainCorp Ltd said it has bought a 10 % stake in Egypt’s largest private flour miller, Five Star Flour Mills Co, strengthening its relationship with the world’s largest importer of wheat.
The stake was worth about A$10 million ($9.4 million) and would be funded by cash reserves, Graincorp said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange on Thursday.
“We are very pleased to consolidate our positive relationship with GrainCorp and to have our supplier of choice on board,” Mahmoud el Shorbagi, chairman and managing director of Five Star Flour Mills said in the statement.
“We are a major buyer of high quality hard, white wheat grown in eastern Australia.”
Australia is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of wheat, shipping 18.69 million tonnes during the 2013/14 season.
Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer. It usually buys about 10 million tonnes of wheat a year from international markets and uses a mixture of domestic and imported wheat for a subsidised bread programme that feeds millions of people.
Source: Reuters
