December 5, 2012

Servolux has become the key shareholder of Smolevichi broiler poultry farm after the former acquires shares from the firm through the process of follow-on offering.

This step will have serious consequences for the Belarusian poultry market as Servolux and "Smolevichi broiler poultry farm" are the two largest producers of poultry meat in the country, and experts pointed out that the merger will create a potential monopolist with the significant part of the market.

According to the Republican Unitary Enterprise "The Republican Central Securities Depository", JSC "Smolevichi broiler poultry farm" launched an additional 36,609,766 ordinary shares to the value of US$ 0.96 and increased the authorised capital twice to US$ 70.4 million. This allowed "Servolux" to become 50% stake owner in Smolevichsky.

As the result of this transaction, it has created the country's largest holding company for the production of poultry meat. Thus, according to date of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Belarus, in the first half of 2012, "Smolevichi broiler poultry farm" was the largest producer of poultry meat in the country.

Smolevichi produced 25,484 tonnes of poultry in live weight in the first half of 2012. Second place in the list of top producers was the company "Servolux Agro", the structure unit of "Servolux", which produced 25,061 tonnes of poultry.

The combined production of these two poultry meat companies exceeded 50,000 tonnes, which is more than double the production level of the nearest competitor "Poultry Farm Druzba ".