China's largest soya crusher, Juicing, is seeking foreign investors, joining a group of home crushers in the restructuring of an industry plagued with overcapacity, a senior company official said.
State-owned Juicing Oil and Fat Co Ltd, headquartered in China's top soya producing province of Heilongjiang, is the country's largest soya processor, with a daily capacity of 15,000 tonnes.
"We are planning to sell a 49 percent stake to foreign investors, but the deal has to tie all plants together," said one Juicing executive this week.
Juicing has three plants, including one based in Harpoon that crushes domestic beans. Some foreign firms, like Archer Daniel's Midland, the world leading soyabean processor, have approached the company for the acquisition, the executive said.
US-based ADM already runs a number of crushers together with the country's state-owned trading company COFCO, while Singapore-based Wilma Group and US-based Cargill Inc.
Have also built plants in the last few years. Bunged Ltd said in July it would buy into a Chinese crusher in Shantung Province. "But we are more interested in foreign firms that have soyabean sources but run no crushers in China," said the executive. He declined to give reasons for the preference. Noble Group Ltd, Asia's biggest commodities merchant, has been scouting out investment possibilities in Chinese crushers, industry sources said.
China's crushers have expanded rapidly over the past few years, and the resulting overcapacity has caused many to lose money as domestic soyameal prices have plunged.
Some also have difficulties getting credit to buy beans. That has provided a golden opportunity for foreigners to acquire domestic firms, industry officials have said.
China cannot produce enough beans to feed its crushing industry. The problem is exacerbated by a transport bottleneck from the producing north-east to the feed consuming south and central areas, forcing many crushers to import soyabeans from the United States and South America.
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