Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, chairwoman of Louis Dreyfus Company Holdings BV, said she has secured financing to buy out other family members as a deadline for the transaction loomed next month.
The Russian billionaire heiress, who needed about $900 million to meet a December deadline, has been squeezing agricultural trading house Louis Dreyfus Co. for cash. The company last month announced it had paid a dividend of $411 million, partly financed with fresh debt, which will largely go to Louis-Dreyfus. Louis-Dreyfus didn’t rule out “strategic partnerships” in a statement on Wednesday.
“With a stable ownership structure secured, we are well positioned to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy,” Louis-Dreyfus said in the statement. “I also wish to keep all options open in terms of strategic partnerships, if appropriate for the business.”
The 56-year-old Louis-Dreyfus has been under pressure to fulfill a commitment to her late husband Robert to consolidate control of the business. Her stake would rise to more than 96 percent from about 80 percent if she buys out the family members.
Cementing Control
The arrangement will relieve some of the questions swirling around the trading business as to how Louis-Dreyfus would fulfill her obligation to buy out remaining family members. However, today’s statement didn’t say how the “arrangements” were made and at what cost to the commodities trader.
The trading house remains committed to its policy of paying a dividend of as much as 50 percent of net earnings, plus ad hoc extraordinary payouts related to strategic divestments, according to the statement.
If she is successful in making the payment, it would further cement Louis-Dreyfus’s control of the 167-year-old company, one of the world’s largest agriculture trading houses. But the cash crunch comes at a perilous time for LDC, which reported its lowest first-half profit since at least 2011 and recently lost its chief executive officer and chief financial officer.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
