Agriculture, Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, Investments, Markets and Companies

Trigon Agri said that the farm to be acquired is exceptional due mainly to three strong competitive advantages: location, contiguous layout and irrigation potential. These three factors together allow the farm to have very high profitability potential. The Rostov farm is located in the neighbourhood of the Novorossiysk port, which is the main export hub of grains from Russia through the Black Sea transportation corridor. The farm to be acquired also owns farm-based grain storage warehouses with a total storage capacity of 20,000 tonnes of grains.

The transaction will be carried out as an acquisition of 100% of shares of the operating entity that holds a free-hold ownership title to 30,000 hectares. As means of payment the parties have agreed that Trigon Agri will pay for the acquisition with two components: 18,500 hectares of land in free-hold ownership in its Samara cluster and EUR 16 million in cash or in new shares of Trigon Agri. The targeted closing of the transaction is in Q3 2012.

Following the closing of the Rostov transaction, as well as the previously announced Väätsa dairy farm acquisition, Trigon Agri's total land bank would increase to 195,000 hectares, including 128,000 hectares in free-hold ownership in Russia, 4,200 hectares in free-hold ownership and under usufruct agreements in Estonia and the remainder operated under long-term rental agreements.

Trigon Agri is a leading integrated soft commodities production, storage and trading company with operations in Ukraine, Russia and Estonia. Trigon Agri is managed under a management agreement by Trigon Capital, a leading Central and Eastern European operational management firm with around USD 1 billion of assets under management.