(Reuters) – Brazil’s BRF SA, the world’s largest chicken exporter, signed an agreement to acquire Thailand’s Golden Foods Siam for $360 million, the company said on Tuesday in a securities filing.
The acquisition will be carried out by its subsidiary BRF GmbH and includes all the shares in Golden Foods Siam and its assets in Thailand and Europe, the filing said.
Golden Foods Siam is owned by Navis Capital Partners, a Malaysian private equity firm, and supplies chicken products to restaurants and retailers in Asia and Europe.
BRF said Golden Foods Siam was one of the top chicken processing companies in Thailand and operated in 15 other markets worldwide.
The Brazilian company has been moving to expand its global reach as a supplier of foods, following in the footsteps of other big Brazilian exporters such as meat packer JBS SA and miner Vale SA.
In two other filings on Tuesday, BRF said it had signed a pledge to buy Argentina’s Eclipse Holding Cooperatief UA, a Dutch-owned pork products company, for $85 million, and reached an understanding to buy Universal Meats, a food distributor in Britain, for $51.2 million
Earlier this year, it invested $19 million for a 49 percent stake in a joint venture in Singapore that will expand the supply of processed and value-added foods by leasing two meat processing plants and a distribution center in the country.
In October, BRF announced it was buying Argentine brands producing sausage, hamburgers and margarine from Molinos Rio de la Plata for $43.5 million.
(Reporting by Eduardo Simoes; Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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