Pilmico scouts for acquisition targets

SCREENGRAB from www.pilmico.com

Pilmico Foods Corp., a unit of Aboitiz Equity Ventures, is looking at additional acquisitions or investments into flour mills and feed mills in neighboring countries as it anticipates free trade among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

“We are working to expand our business into Asean markets like Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam,” Pilmico president and chief executive Sabin Aboitiz said in an interview.

“We have just assumed control of an aqua feed mill in southern Vietnam two weeks ago,” Aboitiz said. “Hopefully that will pave the way for our entry into nearby countries Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, because we will be supplying our Vietnam products to (buyers) along the Mekong River.”

Last May, Pilmico announced that it bought a 70-percent interest in Vinh Hoan 1 Feed JSC for $28 million.

On the local front, Aboitiz said the company was investing close to P200 million in a chicken egg laying facility in Tarlac, which will initially have 160,000 birds.

This plant is expected to be online by 2015 and, beyond that, the plan is for the facility to house one million fowls.

“We have also expanded production capacity in our feed mills in Tarlac and Iligan,” Aboitiz added.

Pilmico’s main business involves one of the country’s largest flour milling concerns.

It is also into the manufacture of feeds for poultry and hogs as well as swine raising through Pilmico Animal Nutrition Corp.

While the agricultural sector is considered to be a likely loser in economic integration, Aboitiz said free trade was fine if the playing field was level, alluding to the advantage of farmers in other countries where the government provides subsidy to agricultural production.

“The problem is when imported agricultural goods are cheaper than local products because the imports are subsidized,” he said.

“As long as economic integration is fair, we love it,” Aboitiz added.