Tate & Lyle agrees sale of Molasses business

Tate & Lyle PLC (“Tate & Lyle”) announces that it has signed an agreement for the sale of its Molasses business to W&R Barnett Ltd.  The consideration is £67 million payable in cash, subject to closing adjustments for net cash and working capital. The proceeds will be used to reduce Tate & Lyle’s net debt.  Completion is conditional on employee consultation and is expected to occur in the next few weeks.

Molasses comprises the global molasses trading desk based in London, UK and other worldwide marketing operations together with the UK third party storage operations.  These businesses had external sales of £228 million and made an operating profit of £13 million in the year to 31 March 2010, and had gross assets of £81 million at that date. The sale excludes historic UK pension assets and liabilities and, after costs and subject to movements in exchange rates, is expected to give rise to a small book profit on disposal. 

On 1 July 2010, Tate & Lyle announced the disposal of its EU Sugar Refining operations, and its intention to launch processes to sell the remaining businesses within its Sugars division, principally Molasses and Vietnamese sugar. The sale of Molasses is being announced today, and the sale of the Vietnamese sugar business is progressing to plan.

Javed Ahmed, Chief Executive of Tate & Lyle said:

“I would like to thank our Molasses employees for their hard work and commitment over many years, and wish them every success in the future.

“Tate & Lyle’s clear priority is to grow its Speciality Food Ingredients business, supported by cash generated from Bulk Ingredients.  This disposal represents another important step as we focus, fix and grow our business.”