25/02/2010 (Financial Times) - New Britain Palm Oil is to acquire 80 per cent of CTP, another producer with three plantations in Papua New Guinea, for $175m in cash.

The seller is a joint venture between Cargill and Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government’s investment arm. The acquisition will increase New Britain Palm Oil’s plantation area from 50,000 to 75,000 hectares.

Unilever cuts palm oil ties over environment fears - Dec-11Colombia’s palm growers turn methane into gold - Dec-03New Britain signs Ferrero supply deal - Oct-07New Britain Palm Oil will finance the deal through increased facilities with Standard Chartered in Singapore and ANZ. Alan Chaytor, executive director, said the acquisition would mean the company had already achieved the objective set out on flotation in December 2007 of doubling its plantation area within seven to eight years.

A fall in the average palm oil price last year from $926 to $710 a tonne left pre-tax profits excluding the effect of a revaluation of biological assets down from $106.3m to $85.3m on total revenues down from $352.2m to $323.8m.

Nevertheless the amount of fresh fruit bunches processed rose from 1.27m to 1.47m tonnes, and the amount of crude palm oil produced rose from 320,0000 to 366,000 tonnes.

After a $114.8m gain in fair value adjustment on the biological assets, pre-tax profits were $200.1m, up from $28.8m previously, when there was a $77.5m loss on the adjustment.

Basic earnings per share excluding the revaluation fell from 51.7 to 41.8 cents. Under its new banking agreement, a final dividend will not be paid. The interim dividend was 14 cents.

Liberum Capital, its broker, is forecasting adjusted pre-tax profits of $106.8m this year on revenues of $458.6m.