Libra closes purchase of Cargill terminal-33
Valor Econômico
The Libra Group closed yesterday the purchase of Terminal 33 of the port of Santos, specialized in the exportation of bagged sugar. The negotiations with the seller, the Terminal of Exportation of Sugar of Guarujá (Teag, in Portuguese), controlled by Cargill and Crystalsev, took more than nine months. With the acquisition, Libra opens a way to create a great integrated terminal in Santos with potential to duplicate the operating capacity of the group in the port.
The value of the acquisition has not been disclosed, but estimates of market point T-33 should add R$ 100 million (US$ 52.6 million) a year to the income of the group. In 2009, Libra should have an income between R$ 850 million (US$ 447.4 million) and R$ 900 million (US$ 473.7 million), of which the business unit of container terminals is responsible for nearly 70% of the total. In 2008, the group had earnings of R$ 870 million (US$ 475.4 million).
Libra has container terminals in Rio and in Santos. Only in Santos the group has capacity to operate 900 thousand TEUs a year. In the port, the group has terminals T-34, T-35, T-36 and T-37. T-33, with 33 thousand square meters of area and 260 meters of berths for the mooring of ships, is contiguous to the Libra container terminals. The idea is to integrate the T-33 to the other terminals of the group in the port, said the president of the Libra Group, Marcelo Malta Araújo, to Valor.
The purpose is to make the terminal work with other products besides sugar, the case of special cargoes and of projects (parts and components for industries, for example). T-33 has capacity to outflow 850 thousand tons of sugar a year and it features two warehouses, each with 9 thousand square meters. At a first moment, the terminal should not operate containers, but in the future it may be important in multimodal containerized cargo operations.