Perdigão to become 3rd in World slaughtering of fowls
Valor Econômico - 12/18/2007
Without being able to talk about perspectives for Perdigão in 2008 because of the silence period due to the acquisition of Eleva, the company's CEO, Nildemar Secches, generalized on his forecasts in yesterday's meeting with journalists. He said the company, which has just sold 23 million in stocks at the stock exchange to pay Eleva, plans to invest R$ 800 million (US$ 449.4 million) a year in the next four years and increase the sales volume by 10% "every year". In the last 12 years, the growth rate was 14%, and the production may reach nearly 1.7 million tons this year. According to Secches, with the acquisition of Eleva, Perdigão becomes the leader in the slaughtering of fowl and swine in Brazil. Before that, Sadia was the leader. Perdigão has also become the leader in the exportation of fowls; however, Sadia continues ahead in the shipping of pork. He informed the next issue of the World Poultry specialized magazine may show Perdigão, after the purchase of Eleva, as the third largest company in the slaughtering of fowls in the world, behind Americans Pilgrim's and Tyson Foods. The expected restrictions of the European Union in relation to the Brazilian beef do not affect Perdigão's plans for the segment, says Secches. The company has already put into operation one unit for the slaughtering of cow in Mirassol d'Oeste (MT) this year, which is going through an improvement in order to reach the total capacity of 2 thousand animals a day in 2008. This capacity is currently at 500 animals. Next year Perdigão intends to obtain the permission for the unit to export to the EU, according to Antônio Augusto de Toni, export director of the company. In order to reach the slaughtering goal of 6 thousand animals until 2011, Perdigão may acquire or build two units, says Nelson Vas Hacklauer, of the area of new businesses. On new acquisitions, the Vice-Chief Financial Officer, Wang Wei Chang said the company is focused on Latin America, but he pointed out that "it wouldn't be something very big".