Guyana’s sugar market in Europe assured

Jul 23, 2010 News

From left: Simon Gibbons - Senior Vice President T&L International Operations, Gavin Wakley - Commercial Director T&L Caribbean and Americas Sugars, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud, Raj Singh - Deputy Chief Executive Officer, GuySuCo and Paul Bhim - Chief Executive Officer (ag).

– Tate and Lyle

By Leonard Gildarie

Guyana’s sugar market in Europe is assured.
This confident expression was made by visiting officials of Tate and Lyle (T&L) yesterday.
Their visit comes more than three weeks after T&L, Guyana’s biggest customer, announced that it has sold its European refineries to the American Sugar Refining Inc (ASR).
The sale announcement had brought fresh worries that the country’s sugar market with Europe, already hit by a 36% price cuts within recent years, could be thrown into more turmoil.
A delegation of T&L, known locally as “Booker-Tate”, yesterday met with Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud, GuySuCo’s Paul Bhim, Chief Executive Officer (ag.) and Raj Singh – Deputy Chief Executive Officer.
Guyana’s contract with Tate and Lyle runs out in 2015.
Kaieteur News understands that while T&L committed to sending technical personnel to Guyana to help with its turnaround plan, negotiations have also started for better sugar prices, which is also facing threats from a falling Euro.
In Guyana yesterday from the European company were Simon Gibbons, Senior Vice President International Operations and Gavin Wakley, Commercial Director, Caribbean and Americas Sugars.
New market opportunities, currently opened to Guyana, was also said to be explored during the meeting yesterday.
According to a statement from GuySuCo, T&L has “enjoyed” a close business partnership over the years with the Corporation.
“GuySuCo was assured that the new merger between T&L and ASR will not affect its current business contract and partnership with Tate and Lyle. The visiting officials of T&L reaffirmed their commitment to provide assistance in several areas so as to ensure the sugar industry achieves the goals of its turnaround plan.”
GuySuCo disclosed that T&L has committed to “help Guyana grow more cane, produce more sugar and to develop a viable sugar industry for the long term”.
ASR is the largest cane sugar refiner in North America.
T&L, a British company involved in the Caribbean sugar industry for decades, was involved in the management of the local sugar industry until a few months ago, before GuySuCo fired its representatives for mismanagement, among other things.
In severing the contract, GuySuCo had said that it was withholding monies owed to the company as Guyana attempted to assess the damage as a result of T&L’s mismanagement.
T&L was involved in managing the construction of the multi-million new, state-of-the-art factory at Skeldon which although handed over to Guyana, is still fraught with problems.
According to T&L’s website, the company’s decision to sell its sugar refineries to ASR is to “focus” on other areas of business.
“The consideration is £211 million payable in cash, subject to closing adjustments for net cash and working capital, with the proceeds used to reduce Tate and Lyle’s net debt,” the company said in a statement.
On May 27, 2010, T&L announced its clear intentions to “focus, fix and grow its business. Today’s announcement is fully consistent with those intentions and will result in a more focused, less volatile business, and a solid platform to deliver sustainable long-term growth in Speciality Food Ingredients, supported by cash generated from Bulk Ingredients.”
EU consists of the cane sugar refineries in London, UK, and Lisbon, Portugal, the Lyle’s Golden Syrup factory in London, UK, the associated sugar and syrup brands and the Tate & Lyle Process Technology consulting business.
In the year ended March 31, 2010, the businesses had external sales of £689 million and made an adjusted operating profit of £14 million (after transitional aid of £17 million). It also had gross assets of £374 million as at March 31, 2010.
The sale excludes historic UK pension assets and liabilities and is expected to give rise to a book loss on disposal, before costs, of approximately £55 million, subject to exchange rate movements and the timing of completion.
The completion of the transaction, which is conditional upon anti-trust clearance in Portugal, is expected to occur in approximately two months.
Payment of £5 million of the consideration is contingent on the transfer of certain joint venture shareholdings that are subject to pre-emption rights held by the other shareholders.
Tate & Lyle has provided American Sugar Refining, Inc. with a perpetual worldwide licence to use the Tate & Lyle brand in connection with the retail sale of sugar and in other limited circumstances, the company said.
Tate & Lyle also announces the launch of processes to sell the remaining businesses within the sugars division, principally Molasses and Vietnamese sugar.