Foreign funds pour into fruit juice firm
By Zhang Lu (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-07-04 09:28 "We expect to bring Huiyuan into the world market in the near future, when
further consolidating the brand performance in the Chinese market," said Qin
Peng, president of Danone's China operation.
In addition to capital
investment, Danone will use its own experience and expertise to help Huiyuan
integrate sales channels and supply chains as well as upgrade production
technology.
Danone has been active in buying into Chinese food and
beverage companies like Wahaha, Robust and Bright Dairy, to expand its business
presence here.
Industry analysts said that Huiyuan is preparing for a
public listing, and this is part of the reason why it introduced strategic
investment.
Zhu admitted that the company plans to get listed, but there
is no direct link between listing and investment from the four companies, and no
timetable has been set for the listing.
China Huiyuan was established
under a co-operation deal signed between Huiyuan Group and Taiwan-based
Uni-President in March, 2005.
Under the deal, Uni-President will invest
US$30.3 million for a 5 per cent stake of China Huiyuan, while Huiyuan will
split its fruit juice business from Huiyuan Group into the new
venture.
Fruit plantations, raw material processing, and production and
export of juice concentrates remain in the group company.
However,
Uni-President quit the investment due to the adjustment of the two sides'
investment strategies, the Taiwan company said in a statement
yesterday.
Established in 1992, Huiyuan Group now has over 20 production
sites and a number of fruit planting bases around the country.
Its sales
reached 4.5 billion yuan (US$563 million) last year and it had about half of the
domestic fruit juice market.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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