$100m deal creates
50/50 joint venture
Terry Hutson
CAPESPAN'S SEARCH for an equity partner ended last week when South Africa's largest fruit exporter sold half its equity in terminal operations to UK terminal operator Mersey Docks & Harbour Company. The price paid is a reported US$100 million, which includes the terminals at Durban, Maputo, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.
In terms of the investment Mersey Docks and Harbour becomes a
50/50 venture partner with Capespan in Fresh Produce Terminals, operator of the only dockside temperature-controlled warehouses in all four ports. The combined total of the four terminals offers 41 500 temperature -controlled pallet spaces and they handle an annual gross of more than
a million pallets of
fresh produce, making Capespan the biggest exporter of perishable products from South Africa.
Mersey Docks also operates Britain's major fruit port at Sheerness where two years ago it opened a £35 million fresh produce terminal and deep water berth in another joint
venture with Capespan.
Mersey Docks' CEO Peter Jones said the joint venture was in line with Mersey Docks' policy of strategic acquisition in the UK and overseas.
Since 2000 Mersey Docks and Harbour Co have been the principal partners in the privatised port operation at Maputo in Mozambique.
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