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Saudi Arabia Food and Drink Report Q4 2009
Business Monitor International, Sep 2009, Pages: 55
The Saudi Arabia Food and Drink Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, food and drink associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Saudi Arabia's food and drink industry.
Saudi Arabia remains unmoved in fourth place in the regional Food & Drink Business Environment Ratings table for Q409. Although the author expects low energy prices on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis to force down the kingdom’s GDP growth to 0.52% in 2009, the economic downturn has not stopped some of its leading food and drink companies from pursuing expansions. Led by the increasingly ambitious diversified dairy behemoth Almarai, Saudi companies are spreading their wings promisingly as discussed in the recently published Saudi Arabia Food & Drink Report for Q409.
Almarai has stolen the show in 2009. In February 2009, it partnered with PepsiCo to form International Dairy and Juice Limited (IDJ), a company created to acquire promising dairy and juice processors across non-Gulf regional markets. IDJ has already made two notable buys; in June 2009, it acquired the Jordan-based dairy and fruit juice producer Teeta and quickly followed this up by buying the Egyptian dairy company International Company for Agro-Industrial Projects (Beyti) for a reported US$115mn. Almarai’s expansive diversification initiative is reducing its reliance on the Saudi market, which is particularly important considering that the author is currently forecasting food consumption to increase by just 6.2% through to 2013.
Almarai has also been actively broadening its business domestically, which currently relies on the fresh milk segment. In July 2009, it reached an agreement to acquire full ownership of the domestic poultry producer Hail Agricultural Development Company (Hadco). Almarai agreed to pay SAR30.1 per share – a 3.4% premium on the company’s closing share price on June 30 2009 and 35.3% more than Almarai had unsuccessfully bid in November 2008 (the deal valued Hadco at around SAR950mn (US$253mn). In the same month, Almarai announced plans to begin production at a new SAR650mn infant formula plant and a SAR200mn baked goods plant by the fourth quarter of 2010.
Not to be outdone, the diversified conglomerate Savola Group has also been active this quarter. Although it reported a 17.5% y-o-y dip in Q209 (through to June 30 2009) to SAR212.5mn (US$57mn), it attributed much of the drop to provisions made on a minority stake held in a Saudi property company. On the acquisition side, Savola bolstered its mass grocery retail (MGR) business in July after reaching an agreement worth a reported SAR440mn (US$117.3mn) to acquire the Geant supermarket banner owned by Saudi-based Fawaz Alhokair Group. Possessing a robust balance sheet, it is believed that Savola will not tap into debt markets to finance its latest purchase. Geant’s 11 outlets will be absorbed by Savola’s MGR arm Panda. Savola is ideally placed to capitalise on the forecast that through to 2013 supermarket sales in the kingdom will increase by 21.4% and reach US$1.7bn.
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