COFCO International Ltd., China’s largest food and agriculture company and GROWMARK Inc. announced on June 20 that they have entered into definitive agreements, whereby COFCO has agreed to purchase GROWMARK’s minority stake in a transloading facility in Cahokia, Ill., while GROWMARK has agreed to purchase COFCO’s ownership in the Chicagograin warehouse facility, known as B-House.
The Cahokia Facility is a grain and byproduct transloading terminal located on the Mississippi River in the year-round St. Louis Harbor. It has access to all seven of North America’s Class I railroads, supported by over seven miles of private onsite rail track, capable of accepting up to four unit trains (110 cars) at a time. It is a high-speed rail and truck-to-barge loading facility.
B-House is located on the Calumet River near downtown Chicago, and has a capacity of 11.5 million bushels. The warehouse is capable of moving grain through rail, truck, barge, and laker vessels, and facilitates imports and exports via the Great Lakes.
“We plan to continue investing in our US business, and we intend to pursue additional opportunities focused on supporting our US Gulf and Pacific Northwest export strategy,” said Zhijun (Jerry) Shi, Chief Operating Officer for COFCO International in North America.
“GROWMARK is a farmer-owned cooperative. That means the farmers growing the grain that gets traded through B-House will now get to participate in the returns generated from this link of the supply chain. We are excited to add B-House to our portfolio of cooperatively owned grain assets,” said Matt Lurkins, GROWMARK’s Vice President of Grain and Strategic Relationships.