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imagePAULO: Banana producer Chiquita Brands International Inc adjourned a shareholder vote on a plan to merge with Fyffes Plc in order to engage in discussions with Grupo Cutrale and Safra Group regarding a $611 million unsolicited takeover bid.

US-based Chiquita said in a statement on Monday that Irish tropical fruits producer Fyffes had granted it a waiver to negotiate with Cutrale and Safra. Chiquita's planned Sept. 17 shareholder meeting to vote on the Fyffes deal was postponed until Oct. 3, the statement added.

Chiquita, which agreed in March to merge with Fyffes to create the world's biggest banana supplier, will review the Safra-Cutrale bid, the statement added. While management continued to support the Fyffes deal, Chiquita wants to join discussions that lead to a "final and best" offer from the bidders, the statement said.

The move by Chiquita comes days after Cutrale and Safra began preliminary steps to launch a proxy fight.

One source with knowledge of the deal told Reuters last month that Safra and Cutrale would struggle to convince Chiquita's board to accept the offer in the first place since the deal's potential benefits were not immediately clear for investors.

The joint bid from Safra and Cutrale brought some shine back to Chiquita, whose stock price has shed almost two-thirds of its value over the past decade as the company grappled with geopolitical instability in Latin America, price volatility and uneven demand for fresh produce around the world. The company's shares rose 43 percent in the past month.

Faced with declining orange juice consumption globally, Brazil's Cutrale is expanding into new regions and products after venturing into grain trading in recent years.

For Safra, a banking and investment group led by the family of Lebanese-Brazilian financier Joseph Safra, diversification into the fruit industry is a strategic choice, the source said.

Shares of Fyffes reversed losses on the Irish Stock Exchange and rose 2.1 percent to 0.98 euros on Monday. Chiquita rose 1.3 percent to $13.93 in New York, buoyed by expectations that Cutrale and Safra could sweeten their bid.

Cutrale and Safra, which made public a $13 per share offer on Aug. 11, were not immediately available to comment on the Chiquita statement.

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