Top feed manufacturer:
Evialis reveals
growing
global
ambitions
By Peter Best
Not content with selling in 50 countries from a number
of manufacturing centres, the French animal nutrition
group Evialis wants to expand its network of operations
around the globe. Evialis tells FEED INTERNATIONAL
that it will seek acquisitions to further increase its international presence. Already the group, based in the big
animal production zone of northwestern France, is among the top 20
feed manufacturers worldwide.
However, group president Pierre Lefebvre, in an exclusive FI
interview also in this issue, underlined the expansionist inclinations
of the group’s directors. The firm view at board level seems to regard
being a significant player within one country as far from the complete
International brands
National
brands
Regional
brands
Speciality
brands
Growing to global scale
Growing from its roots in the French family-owned Guyomarc’h commercial feed company more than 50 years ago, the Evialis group today
fields more than 2 0 feed product brands and operates worldwide. See
www.evialis.com.
solution for the future. It is not even enough to be an exporter. To be
truly competitive, leaders of Evialis believe, demands a network of
operations in animal nutrition that extends around the world.
In the case of Evialis, this marks a clear statement of intent by an
enterprise that already manufactures feed products at 52 plants in
12 countries and sells on 50 markets internationally. When the group
reported its financial results for the first six months of 2006, it said that
international activities had contributed C78 million or nearly a quarter
to a total consolidated sales figure of C316.3 million. For the first half
of 2006, this performance was up 2.8% from the turnover of C307.6
million recorded for January-June 2005. The Evialis Asian business
had generated C20.3 million, boosted especially by C13.4 million
from Vietnam where the group has been extending its factories in the
north and south of the country. Southern and eastern Europe added
C26 million between them, while Brazil put in C19.5 million and South
Africa C8 million.
These results were announced at the same time as a change in the
structure of the group’s ownership. Equity investor BNP Paribas had
previously told the Paris stockmarket that its 63.2% shareholding in
Evialis was “a purely financial investment” which it intended to reduce
gradually below 50% as market conditions allowed. Now BNP Paribas
revealed that it had dropped its stake to 47.3% after an improvement
in the trading conditions for Evialis shares.
Historically, the feed group started life over 50 years ago as
family feed business Guyomarc’h in Brittany, which has become
the country’s leading animal production zone. In 1960, Guyomarc’h
moved into poultry production
and processing as an integrator
and the first internationalisation
came in 1968 with the opening
of a Spanish base. Guyomarc’h
Nutrition Animale was formed as
a separate subsidiary in 1988
and this GNA entity was acquired
by French banking group Paribas in 1990. A portion of its shares was
first floated on the Paris stockmarket in 1996.
Re-named as Evialis in 2001, the increasingly international company
specialised in commercial feed products was structured into three
divisions for nutrition, international affairs, and animal health, while
the French premix business and firme-services activities were merged
into a subsidiary called Prisma. As a firme-services, Prisma offers
both premixes and related paid services that can include analysis,
nutritional consultancy, and diet formulation.
See Page 8 for FEED
INTERNATIONAL’S
exclusive interview
with the CEO of Evialis.
Insulation against ‘bird flu’
Analysts watching the recent statements of financial performance
in the feed industry have noted an ongoing emphasis on the influence
felt by a feed manufacturer’s results according to its species coverage. Avian influenza continues to bedevil the feed scene in a mix of
countries, Evialis had pointed out, and this in turn limits their uptake
of poultry diets. By comparison, the group has gained from having
a strong ruminants presence in the product mix it offers in France.
Sales of its ruminant products represent about 50% of its total French
turnover. Likewise, Evialis has benefited from a pigs-and-aquaculture
bias in its third-largest national market, Vietnam.
The Vietnamese perspective will be reinforced by the end of 2006
through the investment programme aimed at doubling the subsidiary’s
overall compound feed production capacity, with even a tripling of
potential output intended for fish and shrimp feeds. Porcine and
aquaculture volumes at the Vietnam operation had already increased
by one-third in the first three months of 2006 alone.
The downside, of course, could be seen recently in countries
