São Paulo – Marfrig Alimentos, a Brazilian meat packing company, will use the structure of Keystone Foods, which it acquired in October last year, for product distribution. Keystone processes meat and has units in 13 different countries, among them the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. “Under our current distribution platform, Keystone will tend to be increasingly used as a logistics company, with its strategic geographical positioning," said the Investor Relations director, Ricardo Florence dos Santos, on disclosing the company results this Thursday (31st).
Keystone has 54 units and aside from the Middle East, it is also present in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. It is a supplier to fast food chains such as Mc Donald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC, and its distribution platform to restaurants has global reach. Prior to purchasing Keystone, Marfrig already exported to the Middle East, which accounted for 19.1% of its 6.4 billion reals (US$ 3.9 billion) in exports in 2010. Exports grew by 73% compared with 2009, when export revenues reached 3.7 billion reals (US$ 2.2 billion).
Last year, at the company result presentation conference, Marfrig executives highlighted the purchase of Keystone as a key factor to making Marfrig into a global enterprise. "In 2010, our strategy was to create a global platform, one that is well-suited to organic growth, with synergies in production and distribution at important global markets," said the CEO of Marfrig, Marcos Antonio Molina dos Santos. "We are a world-scale company, enabled by Keystone," said Florence.
According to data disclosed by the company, the acquisition of Keystone will create synergy, or cost reduction, of US$ 100 million by 2013. With the purchase of the United States-based company and of the Brazilian enterprise Seara, Marfrig now has over 90,000 collaborators, over 150 units in 22 countries across five continents. "Synergies are not expected in the short term," said Florence regarding Keystone. Last year, Keystone USA processed 187.9 million chickens, according to Marfrig. This generated 725,800 tonnes of chicken products. The enterprise also produced 118,500 tonnes of beef and 9,300 tonnes of fish.
Last year, Marfrig posted a consolidated gross profit of 20.6 billion reals (US$ 12.5 billion), an increase of 14.2% over the previous year. The growth was due to both domestic and foreign market performance. Net profit reached 15.9 billion reals (US$ 9.7 billion), a 65% increase of 2009. Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) reached 1.5 billion (US$ 916 billion), with a margin of 9.5%, as against 725 million reals (US$ 443 million) and a 7.5% margin in 2009. The company hit a record in number of heads of cattle slaughtered, at 2.6 million in 2010, as against 1.57 million in 2009. Marfrig is the second largest exporter of beef in Brazil, after the JBS group.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
