USA – The Brazilian meat processing company, BRF SA has sold its wholly-owned Campo Austral business in Argentina for US$35 million, completing its asset sale in the country.
The sale involves the facility in Florencio Varela, and all assets and liabilities related to it, including the Bocatti and Calchaquí brands, to Argentine firm BOGS.
BRF has also sold 100% of the capital stock issued by Campo Austral, including its facilities in San Andrés de Giles and Pilar, and the Campo Austral brand, to La Piamontesa de Averaldo Giacosa y Compañía.
Founded in 1994, Campo Austral processes and supplies frozen ready to eat meat products and operates as a subsidiary of BRF.
It operates three plants, located in Florencio Varela, San Andrés de Giles, and Pilar, all in Argentina, with a slaughtering capacity of 2,300 hogs per day.
Assets sale
Last month, BRF agreed to sell its chicken and margarine company Avex for US$50 million through a deleveraging process that included new bank loan operations to extend the company’s debt maturity profile; and the structuring of a Receivables Backed Investment Fund (FIDC).
This was the second asset sale after offloading its beef products division, Quickfood for US$55 million to Marfrig.
The sale included three plants in Argentina a daily processing capacity of 620 head of cattle and more than 6,000 tons of products such as beef patties, wieners, cold cuts and frozen vegetables in a month.
The two companies also entered into a five-year partnership for the production and distribution of beef patties, meatballs, kibbeh and other products at the plant in Varzea Grande.
BRF then, said it had entered negotiations to sell the assets of Campo Austral in Argentina and the company’s operations in Europe and Thailand.
With the divestments, the company is seeking to raise US$1.34 billion (R$5 billion) target established in its restructuring plan unveiled last year.
The partnership with Marfrig will help in providing initiatives in the area of innovation and for the development of new beef patty lines, according to BRF.
In the future looking forward, the Brazilian Sadia, Perdigão, Qualy, Paty maker said it would focus mainly on Brazil, Asia and markets in the Muslim world where it leads the market with a competitive advantage.
BRF was involved in the 2017 ‘carne fraca’ scandal, when its officials were accused of collaborating with inspectors to overlook meat export quality requirements.
This led to a series of bans on Brazilian and BRF’s meat product exports including into the EU.
