Yara buys 14% stake in Brazilian agricultural trading platform Orbia By Reuters

By Ana Mano

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – A unit of Norwegian plant nutrition company Yara International (OTC:) ASA has acquired for an undisclosed sum a 14% stake in Brazilian online agricultural trading platform Orbia, majority-owned by german Bayer AG (OF:).

The move, officially announced after the parties won Brazilian antitrust approval for the deal, comes as Yara aims to derive 25% of its sales from online channels by 2025, the VP said. of Yara Americas, Cleiton Vargas, in an interview.

“Orbia was a perfect fit,” Vargas said.

Orbia CEO Ivan Moreno said Bayer (OTC:) and Brazil’s Bravium were also diluted to welcome Yara as a partner, with the German company now owning 68.8% of Orbia and Bravium holding a stake of 17.2%.

Orbia believes that a new generation of young farmers will increasingly buy inputs online and wants to take advantage of this.

Moreno said Yara’s investment in Orbia, which also gives him a seat on its board, will allow the company “to take a leap forward.”

“The presence of Yara as a partner highlights the credibility of Orbia’s business model,” said Moreno.

In the Orbia market, farmers can buy seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. They can also sell soybeans, corn and coffee.

The company expects sales on Orbia to more than triple to 3 billion reais ($580.5 million) this year from 2021, Moreno said.

After testing the waters in Brazil, a major producer of agricultural products like soy, coffee and sugar, Orbia expanded its operations to Argentina, Mexico and Colombia.

In Brazil, the platform has some 190,000 registered farmers.

($1 = 5.1682 reais)

Warning: Merged media would like to remind you that the data contained in this site is not necessarily in real time or exact. All prices for CFDs (stocks, indices, futures) and Forex are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and therefore prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, which which means that the prices are indicative and not suitable for commercial purposes. Therefore, Fusion Media assumes no responsibility for any business losses you may incur due to the use of this data.

Merged media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will accept no liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance on the information, including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained in this website . Please be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading in the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest forms of investment possible.