Graincorp set to swallow Cargill whole

As the sales process for Cargill’s global malt business is soon to heat up, the growing expectation is that Australia’s largest grain handler, Graincorp, will make a tilt for the entire operation.

CEO Mark Palmquist has now been in the job four years and is understood to have grand plans for the listed company.

Already, the group is said to have an adviser on hand for the sale process. Credit Suisse is typically in its corner, advising on the sale of its Allied Mills business last year. But Macquarie Capital has hustled hard for its business in the past and with Cargill being a US company and Palmquist an American, perhaps a US-based investment bank could now be involved.

As earlier reported by this column, Credit Agricole is selling Cargill’s malt operations and the sales documents will be out in just weeks. Graincorp is among the four largest malt businesses in the world, with the others being Cargill, Malteurop and France’s Boortmalt, backed by Temasek out of Singapore.

It comes as Graincorp weighs opportunities to extract greater value as its share price suffers due to the drought, which is also likely to leave the business short of grain. Globally, the Cargill malt business is thought to be worth about $US1 billion.

Elsewhere, Japan’s Kirin confirmed what was tipped by this column last week — that Deutsche and Greenhill had been hired for a sales process of its Lion dairy business.

And finally, Credit Suisse is said to be working up a new IPO prospect in the technology space to bring to market.

It comes as Bell Potter and Morgans meet investors over the float of AMP Control, which specialises in electrical engineering and control systems and is backed by Soul Patts.