Bird & Bird advises Lantmännen in Nordic cross-border transaction as Lantmännen acquires Raisio plc's cattle feed business

Bird & Bird advises Swedish agricultural cooperative Lantmännen as Raisio plc divests its cattle feed business to Lantmännen.

Raisio has signed an agreement to sell its cattle feed business to Lantmännen Agro Oy. The enterprise value is EUR 34 million and the arrangement will be conducted as a share transaction. Raisio’s cattle feed business is expected to transfer to the new owner during September 2018. The completion of the deal requires an approval from the Finnish competition authorities.

The divested cattle feed business includes two production plants in Ylivieska and Kouvola, as well as the brands, of which Maituri and Melli are the best-known. Raisioagro’s Benemilk licence will also be transferred to the buyer, as well as a total of 76 employees of the cattle feed business that will be transferred to Lantmännen Agro as serving employees. In 2017, net sales for Raisio’s cattle feed business totalled EUR 73.8 million, EBIT was EUR 1.9 million and EBITDA EUR 3.7 million.

The acquisition of Raisio’s cattle feed business will strengthen Lantmännen’s position in the grain value chain in the Baltic Sea area where Lantmännen already has large holdings in the bread and malting industry as well as independent distributors all over Finland through Lantmännen Agro Oy.

Bird & Bird's core team comprises Mårten Willamo, Mikko Ahonen, Heikki Eskola, Lasse Riski and Johanna Wärnberg, with the assistance of Tomi Luukkainen and Ottilia Boström (Employment), Kristina Forsbacka (Environment), Maria Aholainen (Data protection), Maija Puustinen (IPR) and Päivi Tammilehto (Competition).

Lantmännen, an agricultural cooperative with grain at the heart of its operations, is owned by 25,000 Swedish farmers. The company has 10,000 employees, operations in over 20 countries and annual net sales of four billion euros. Some of its best-known food brands are AXA, Bonjour, Kungsörnen, GoGreen and Vaasan.

Raisio is an international company specialised in healthy, responsibly produced food. Well-known brands include Benecol, Elovena, Nalle and Sunnuntai. Raisio’s shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd. In 2017, the Group’s net sales for continuing operations totalled EUR 307 million and comparable EBIT was EUR 38 million.