Al Dahra announced today that a contract had been signed for the purchase of the property of PKB Corporation and its subsidiaries in Serbia through a property sale model. The acquisition is the result of the decision of the Republic of Serbia to privatise PKB Corporation and the announcement of the public tender in August 2018.
Al Dahra is an international corporation specialising in agribusiness, which has as many as 400,000 acres (160,000 hectares) of agricultural land on four continents. It consists of various companies operating in the processing, dairy and milling industry, as well as developed global trading capacities. By including PKB into the existing portfolio, Al Dahra gets an excellent opportunity to strengthen its position in Europe and provide further development of the company’s business in the dairy segment.
The business that Al Dahra takes over from PKB Corporation includes several different activities in the field of agriculture and food sector. Al Dahra will cover more than 17,500 hectares of agricultural land on the eight farms are strategically located near the centre of Belgrade, where the company plans to the cultivation of various crops including sugar beet, sunflower, wheat, corn, barley, forage mixture, and several types of vegetables. Also, Al Dahra will take over the management of dairy and livestock production that supply the milk and meat industry in Serbia. PKB currently produces about 55 million litres of raw milk annually, with a herd of about 17,000 cattle of dairy and meat breeds. Dairy has seven production facilities, including stables and muzzle capacities.
Al Dahra is a part of the transaction undertaken the obligation that in the next three years to invest 30 million euros in business improvement PKB Corporation, the further development of irrigation systems and modernisation of facilities for the production of milk. Al Dahra plans to invest an additional 15m euros in the optimisation of PKB Corporation’s operations and its capacities to achieve higher yields and a higher level of milk quality.
Vice President and co-founder of Al Dahra, H.E. Kadim Al Darei said on the occasion of signing the sales contract on the takeover of PKB Corporation, “Turning PKB in our existing portfolio strengthens the position of the company Al Dahra in Serbia and our regional presence in Europe. At the same time, this investment completes our vertical integration strategy, providing the Group with the opportunity to further develop its business in agricultural, dairy and livestock production. Al Dahra highly values the knowledge and expertise of employees in the PKB, and we are very committed to the continuation of the tradition of the company, as well as keeping a very significant role of PKB in providing the citizens of Serbia. We believe that the privatisation of PKB and investments of Al Dahra in unapeđenje existing capacity and infrastructure significantly contribute to the commercialisation and internationalisation of the Serbian agriculture, and that will benefit from it have Serbian farmers, traders and the entire agricultural sector in Serbia.
We look forward to further strengthening our ties with Serbia and the Serbian people through the realisation of new investments. ”
Al Dahra will work together with the relevant institutions of the Republic of Serbia to finalise the transaction and transfer of property in the upcoming period for the transition to be carried out according to the plan in the interest of all involved parties.