Romania’s Largest Grain Farmer Agricost Courted By Investors

Grain and oilseeds farmer Agricost of entrepreneur Constantin Dulute is up for sale, market sources say.

The deal could be worth more than EUR200 million, according to ZF estimates, which took into account the price of the land of about EUR4,000/hectare, considering the land is leased.

The company officials would not comment on the information.

Ziarul Financiar reported as early as last summer that Agricost, a EUR86million business was being courted by German, British and Arab investors. At the time, Agricost said the land belonged to the government and the company had no way of taking ownership of it so it did not have many foreign investors courting it.

Its officials said they were not looking to sell but were looking for partners for expansion into processing.

Agricost farms 55,639 hectares of land on the Great Braila Island (an island on the Danube River) leased from the government. Agricost is the biggest farm in Romania, as well as in Europe, by the amount of farming land, its officials say.

“The land Agricost farms is very valuable because it has irrigation systems in place and that can generate several thousand euros more per hectare. It’s a very well-equipped area with pumps to get the water in and get it out in case of flooding. If I had the money, I wouldn’t think twice about buying,” a farmer in the west of Romania told ZF.

Source: Ziarul Financiar 05.02.2018