Trading firm Loxley will be expanding its retail arm by capitalising on its 12,000 two- and three-digit online lottery kiosks to double its yearly earnings of Bt5 billion to Bt10 billion in 2014.
Loxley's executive vice president Suraphand Bhasitnirandr said yesterday the company saw a great business opportunity in expanding its retail business through its existing online lottery kiosks nationwide.
The firm currently distributes 20 consumer product brands, and believes its 10 to 15 per cent average growth in the consumer segment can be boosted further if products could be sold via its online lottery kiosks.
It has also developed a model to help lottery operators sell its products, and expects at least 20 to 30 per cent of the 3,000 lottery sellers to jump at the chance.
The company distributes products including cooking oil, UHT milk, snacks, canned tuna to name a few.
The company has four business units, namely trading, technology, service and joint ventures. Loxley's trading arm has contributed 45 per cent of its total sales of Bt10 billion.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Unilever pays $1.8bn for Sara Lee brands
The consumer goods giant Unilever agreed yesterday to pay 1.275 billion ($1.87 billion) for Sara Lee's personal-care brands like Sanex and Radox to reinforce its global lead in deodorants and skin cleansing.
The Anglo-Dutch Unilever Plc/NV is buying a business with 85% of its sales in Europe, while Sara Lee will now look to sell its household goods business separately as it launched a $1 billion share buyback programme.
The deal marks the first major acquisition for Unilever's new chief executive Paul Polman, while Sara Lee's CEO Brenda Barnes is now half-way through a planned sell-off of non-core business aimed at focusing the US group on food and drink.
"The Sara Lee brands enjoy strong consumer recognition, offer significant growth potential and are an excellent fit with Unilever's existing business," said Polman in a statement.
Unilever says Sanex, Radox and also Duschdas brands will complement its Dove, Axe and Rexona at slightly lower prices and strengthen its European business in key markets such as Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain,Italy and Denmark.
Sara Lee said the brands sold accounted for 55% of the profits from its businesses up for sale, and added it had seen significant interest in its household brands including Ambi Pur air fresheners,Kiwi shoe polish, Vapona insecticides and its non-European cleaning brands.
"We intend to use proceeds from the divestiture to invest for growth in our core business and to repurchase stock,"Barnes said in a Sara Lee statement.
The US group also reiterated that it intended to maintain its current quarterly dividend of 11 cents for the next four quarters regardless of the timing of disposals.
Credit Suisse analyst Charlie Mills said the price Unilever was paying of 10 times core operating profit, or EBITDA,"is not huge by industry standards which reflects the fairly disparate collection of assets which also include Brylcream hair gel.
"We're not convinced that this is the greatest collection of assets but another acquisition shows Unilever still moving from the back foot (cost cutting and disposals) to the front foot (volume growth and acquisitions)," he said.
Sara Lee put its household and personal-care business up for sale earlier this year, and it was expected by analysts to break up the wide-ranging business to make a sell-off easier.
The Sara Lee brands being acquired by Unilever generated annual sales in excess of 750 million with EBITDA of 128 million for the year ending June 2009. The overall Sara Lee business up for sale had annual sales of 1.5 billion.The deal is subject to regulatory approval and consultation with European employee works councils.
The Anglo-Dutch Unilever Plc/NV is buying a business with 85% of its sales in Europe, while Sara Lee will now look to sell its household goods business separately as it launched a $1 billion share buyback programme.
The deal marks the first major acquisition for Unilever's new chief executive Paul Polman, while Sara Lee's CEO Brenda Barnes is now half-way through a planned sell-off of non-core business aimed at focusing the US group on food and drink.
"The Sara Lee brands enjoy strong consumer recognition, offer significant growth potential and are an excellent fit with Unilever's existing business," said Polman in a statement.
Unilever says Sanex, Radox and also Duschdas brands will complement its Dove, Axe and Rexona at slightly lower prices and strengthen its European business in key markets such as Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain,Italy and Denmark.
Sara Lee said the brands sold accounted for 55% of the profits from its businesses up for sale, and added it had seen significant interest in its household brands including Ambi Pur air fresheners,Kiwi shoe polish, Vapona insecticides and its non-European cleaning brands.
"We intend to use proceeds from the divestiture to invest for growth in our core business and to repurchase stock,"Barnes said in a Sara Lee statement.
The US group also reiterated that it intended to maintain its current quarterly dividend of 11 cents for the next four quarters regardless of the timing of disposals.
Credit Suisse analyst Charlie Mills said the price Unilever was paying of 10 times core operating profit, or EBITDA,"is not huge by industry standards which reflects the fairly disparate collection of assets which also include Brylcream hair gel.
"We're not convinced that this is the greatest collection of assets but another acquisition shows Unilever still moving from the back foot (cost cutting and disposals) to the front foot (volume growth and acquisitions)," he said.
Sara Lee put its household and personal-care business up for sale earlier this year, and it was expected by analysts to break up the wide-ranging business to make a sell-off easier.
The Sara Lee brands being acquired by Unilever generated annual sales in excess of 750 million with EBITDA of 128 million for the year ending June 2009. The overall Sara Lee business up for sale had annual sales of 1.5 billion.The deal is subject to regulatory approval and consultation with European employee works councils.
Betagro to sell green products
Betagro Group, one of Thailand's leading food producers and exporters, has enhanced its green profile by forming a partnership to market energy-saving products for the livestock industry in local and export markets.
B. International and Technology Co,a unit of Betagro, yesterday entered an agreement to exclusively distribute Kooling Max, a liquid product from Earth Concept Co, a Thai manufacturer and distributor of natural cleaning materials.
Used with a cooling pad in the ventilation system at livestock farms, Kooling Max lowers temperatures, thereby cutting water consumption, electricity bills and animal mortality, said Cherdchai Sinsarng, general manager of B. International and Technology Co.
"At an experimental test, the capacity would bring down operating costs for chicken by 0.50 baht per kilogramme,or 2% to 3% over about six weeks of raising," he said.
B. International plans to sell about 20,000 litres of Kooling Max next year to earn about 15 million baht in revenue.
Although this is a minor contribution to the company's expected revenue of more than 300 million baht this year, B.International sees good prospects for the product from the strong growth in the livestock industry in Thailand and many Asian countries.
The company plans to tap this growth by distributing the product abroad together with other farm product ranges,such as ventilation controllers, cooling pads and silo weighing scales.
Many Asian countries have made substantial investments in livestock businesses to meet growing domestic and export demand, said Nopporn Vayuchote, Betagro Group's executive vicepresident.
Neighbouring countries' many recent investments in raising chicken and swine feature advanced equipment and technologies - especially in Vietnam, where Indonesian investors have set up a giant modern pig farm business, he said.
Kooling Max will reduce energy use in line with a green marketing concept and conform with international rules on animal welfare, he said.
The product has been warmly welcomed by big farm operators including Charoen Pokphand Group, and the resulting energy savings would raise the competitiveness of the Thai livestock industry, he said.
Betagro Group expects its sales this year to increase to 50 billion baht from 45 billion in 2008.
The company plans to inject about 3 billion baht next year into projects including setting up more Betagro Shop outlets, due to reach 50 stores by the year-end, and new investments in readyto-eat food.
B. International and Technology Co,a unit of Betagro, yesterday entered an agreement to exclusively distribute Kooling Max, a liquid product from Earth Concept Co, a Thai manufacturer and distributor of natural cleaning materials.
Used with a cooling pad in the ventilation system at livestock farms, Kooling Max lowers temperatures, thereby cutting water consumption, electricity bills and animal mortality, said Cherdchai Sinsarng, general manager of B. International and Technology Co.
"At an experimental test, the capacity would bring down operating costs for chicken by 0.50 baht per kilogramme,or 2% to 3% over about six weeks of raising," he said.
B. International plans to sell about 20,000 litres of Kooling Max next year to earn about 15 million baht in revenue.
Although this is a minor contribution to the company's expected revenue of more than 300 million baht this year, B.International sees good prospects for the product from the strong growth in the livestock industry in Thailand and many Asian countries.
The company plans to tap this growth by distributing the product abroad together with other farm product ranges,such as ventilation controllers, cooling pads and silo weighing scales.
Many Asian countries have made substantial investments in livestock businesses to meet growing domestic and export demand, said Nopporn Vayuchote, Betagro Group's executive vicepresident.
Neighbouring countries' many recent investments in raising chicken and swine feature advanced equipment and technologies - especially in Vietnam, where Indonesian investors have set up a giant modern pig farm business, he said.
Kooling Max will reduce energy use in line with a green marketing concept and conform with international rules on animal welfare, he said.
The product has been warmly welcomed by big farm operators including Charoen Pokphand Group, and the resulting energy savings would raise the competitiveness of the Thai livestock industry, he said.
Betagro Group expects its sales this year to increase to 50 billion baht from 45 billion in 2008.
The company plans to inject about 3 billion baht next year into projects including setting up more Betagro Shop outlets, due to reach 50 stores by the year-end, and new investments in readyto-eat food.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
BETAGRO GAINS FROM ITS BQM PROGRAMME
The Betagro Group, the country's leading integrated agribusiness enterprise, is set to benefit from Bt100 million in annual cost reductions, thanks to the Betagro Quality Management quality-control programme launched a year ago.
The group has also received 100-per-cent repeat orders from its trading partners. Prices for its export products are quoted 30-per-cent higher than the market price, and stocks at port destinations have dropped significantly, thank to increasing demand.
BQM, which enables complete quality testing, is part of the group's efforts to become one of the top manufacturers of safe consumer foods through its full compliance with all international standards and ability for its products to be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This unique standard of quality control, also called BQM 24/7, will be showcased this weekend when the group attends the world's most important food and beverage fair - Anuga, in Cologne, Germany.
Chief operations officer Vasit Taepaisitphongse said the group would extend the BQM method to its local trading partners, so that they can improve their own operations.
"Our BQM standard will assure customers about our food safety and help us achieve our three-year target of 15-per-cent annual growth on average," Vasit said.
He said the group formulated its unique quality-control system in the face of rising quality requirements from importers, particularly supercentre giants like Tesco.
"Each customer has its own specific standards, so we wanted our standards to surpass anyone's requirements," he said, adding that the group's cost reduction would also help its bottom line.
Executive vice president Suthep Tirapipattanakul agreed BQM had helped the company reduce costs, including by reducing product rejects from 1 per cent to 0.1 per cent.
BQM has also encouraged the group to focus more on premium products, which now accounts for 75 per cent of its production. Plans are afoot to produce only premium products in the near future.
The programme has been successfully applied in its chicken farm and all processing lines. Next up will be its swine operations, with full implementation expected by next year.
Sanon Liawpairoj, commercial director for poultry, said the group's chicken exports reached 33,000 tonnes in the first nine moths of the year, against a full-year target of 46,000 tonnes. Export volume will increase to 55,000 tonnes next year.
The group exports to the European Union (55 per cent) and Japan (45 per cent).
Vasit said the group had targeted revenue growth of 10 per cent next year, to Bt55 billion.
The group has also received 100-per-cent repeat orders from its trading partners. Prices for its export products are quoted 30-per-cent higher than the market price, and stocks at port destinations have dropped significantly, thank to increasing demand.
BQM, which enables complete quality testing, is part of the group's efforts to become one of the top manufacturers of safe consumer foods through its full compliance with all international standards and ability for its products to be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This unique standard of quality control, also called BQM 24/7, will be showcased this weekend when the group attends the world's most important food and beverage fair - Anuga, in Cologne, Germany.
Chief operations officer Vasit Taepaisitphongse said the group would extend the BQM method to its local trading partners, so that they can improve their own operations.
"Our BQM standard will assure customers about our food safety and help us achieve our three-year target of 15-per-cent annual growth on average," Vasit said.
He said the group formulated its unique quality-control system in the face of rising quality requirements from importers, particularly supercentre giants like Tesco.
"Each customer has its own specific standards, so we wanted our standards to surpass anyone's requirements," he said, adding that the group's cost reduction would also help its bottom line.
Executive vice president Suthep Tirapipattanakul agreed BQM had helped the company reduce costs, including by reducing product rejects from 1 per cent to 0.1 per cent.
BQM has also encouraged the group to focus more on premium products, which now accounts for 75 per cent of its production. Plans are afoot to produce only premium products in the near future.
The programme has been successfully applied in its chicken farm and all processing lines. Next up will be its swine operations, with full implementation expected by next year.
Sanon Liawpairoj, commercial director for poultry, said the group's chicken exports reached 33,000 tonnes in the first nine moths of the year, against a full-year target of 46,000 tonnes. Export volume will increase to 55,000 tonnes next year.
The group exports to the European Union (55 per cent) and Japan (45 per cent).
Vasit said the group had targeted revenue growth of 10 per cent next year, to Bt55 billion.
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