AD Ports Group, which runs industrial cities and free zones in Abu Dhabi, has agreed to acquire a Brazilian agricultural bulk port terminal operator in a push to expand its global footprint to South America.
The Dh3.1 billion ($835 million) transaction to acquire Corredor Logística e Infraestrutura (CLI) will help the Abu Dhabi company strengthen its growing agrifood business, AD Ports said on Tuesday.
AD Ports Group is acquiring CLI from joint owners Macquarie Asset Management and IG4 Capital. CLI owns 100 per cent of CLI Norte, which operates a terminal at the port of Itaqui, and 80 per cent of CLI Sul, which runs a terminal in Santos.
The planned transaction, expected to be completed in the second half of this year, is subject to closing conditions such as regulatory and antitrust approvals, AD Ports said.
“The purchase of CLI is a game-changer for AD Ports Group,” said Capt Mohamed Al Shamsi, managing director and group chief executive of AD Ports Group.
“The transaction extends our group’s international reach for the first time into Latin America and deepens our growing agrifood activities.”
The deal will benefit AD Ports group’s global client base and strengthen the company’s network across continents, he added.
The acquisition represents a “transformative step” for the Abu Dhabi company, allowing “strategic access to a vast new number of opportunities for the group’s associated businesses of maritime and shipping, logistics, economic cities and digital services”, it said.
Under the terms of agreement, CLI’s existing senior management team will remain in place.
CLI operates the agri-bulk export terminals under long-term concessions. CLI Sul operates the T16 and T19 agricultural bulk terminals at the Port of Santos in Brazil, serving as the country's largest independent sugar, corn, and soybean export facility. CLI Norte is part of the Brazilian “Arc of the North”, a region encompassing the Amazon basin, with significant emerging agriculture exports.
AD Ports said ports and terminals in northern Brazil recorded the fastest growth in the country last year, underpinning their role in reshaping the nation’s logistics.
AD Ports Group has been on a deal-making spree over the past few quarters, as it expands its footprint and strengthens its global network.
The latest transaction in Brazil – the Abu Dhabi company's largest merger and acquisition deal – will directly link Brazil to the emirate’s Khalifa Port and the Abu Dhabi Food Hub in Kezad.
Agrifood is one of its core growth verticals. In December, AD Port’s Karachi Gateway Multipurpose Terminal and the Pakistan unit of global merchant and agricultural goods processor Louis Dreyfus Company signed a long-term agreement to develop a clean bulk handling and storage depot for agricultural goods in Karachi.
In January last year, the company agreed to invest about $30 million in the greenfield Sarzha Grain Terminal on the Caspian Sea, at Kuryk port in Kazakhstan.
Earlier this year, AD Ports secured a 30-year concession to run the Aqaba multipurpose port in Jordan, a key player in agri-bulk in the Middle East.
AD Ports said its Noatum Ports’ Spanish operations are already significantly involved in agri-bulk, with the Tarragona and Sagunto terminals handling around two million tonnes of grain imports annually.
