News

Algaia shakes hands with Cargill

26 Sep 2016

Algaia (previously named Eviagenics) has entered into a handshake agreement with Cargill to acquire its alginate business and its related manufacturing facility located in Lannilis, France.

Algaia shakes hands with Cargill

Algaia (previously named Eviagenics) has entered into a handshake agreement with Cargill to acquire its alginate business and its related manufacturing facility located in Lannilis, France. Cargill is now entering into the employees’ representative consultation process regarding the sale of Lannilis industrial site to Algaia. Upon closing, Algaia will also welcome a new strategic investor in its shareholding structure, thus, it says, considerably increasing its financial resources and fuelling its growth ambitions.

Following the arrival of its new CEO in 2014, the company says it has gone through a major transformation to focus mainly on marine-derived ingredients and has subsequently changed its name to Algaia. A strategic alliance with Gelymar, one of the leading carrageenan manufacturers worldwide, was established in 2015. Over the same period, Algaia’s historical shareholders, three private equity funds, have made an additional investment round of several million euros.

A few months ago, Algaia completed, the acquisition of Alganact, a French start-up in the field of specialty marine ingredients. It also made public its intent to open a new R&D centre in Saint-Lô (Normandy).

“The acquisition of Cargill’s alginate business nicely fits into our strategy,” said Fabrice Bohin, Algaia’s CEO. “Our commercial, technical, engineering and management teams benefit from decades of experience in the field of marine-based hydrocolloids or specialty extracts. We will be able to support and grow the Alginate business, and we will continue to expand our structure with additional industry talents. We currently benefit from portfolio and strategic synergies with our current Chilean partner. We also developed eco-friendly extraction technologies that Lannilis could benefit from. Our company is focused on specialty marine ingredients with a deep experience in the field. We are both customer service and customer solution orientated.”

Cargill has committed to providing extensive support to Algaia in order to help with a successful transitioning and to facilitate business continuity.