Wilmar International, the Singaporean commodities group, has trumped a bid by China’s Bright Food to buy CRS’s sugar and renewable energy business in Australia for A$1.75bn ($1.5bn).
Sucrogen is the largest producer of raw sugar in Australia and in the top 10 globally. CSR had originally planned to spin off the unit into a separate listed entity in order to separate it from its building products businesses.
The agreed deal between Wilmar and CSR, announced on Monday, came the day after Bright Food made a cash offer of between A$1.65bn and A$1.7bn for Sucrogen, which was below an earlier indicative bid of A$1.75bn that it pitched in April.