CHS Inc., St. Paul, Minn., said Dec. 23 that it has signed a purchase agreement to acquire the assets of Winona River & Rail Inc., a subsidiary of Rosen’s Diversified Inc., Fairmont, Minn. Under the purchase agreement, several contingencies must first be satisfied before the parties will proceed to closing the transaction. If the parties proceed to closing the transaction, the acquisition will strengthen CHS Crop Nutrient’s Midwest and upper Mississippi River position through improved storage capacity and rail access.
“We are very excited about potentially adding the Winona River & Rail assets to our crop nutrients business,” says Cheryl Schmura, vice president, crop nutrients, for CHS. “These assets are well-positioned in an area of key, strategic market importance and the company’s talented workforce has a strong customer focus that has earned them solid business relationships.”
Winona River & Rail is located along the Mississippi River in Winona, Minn. Rochester is 35 miles to the west and Lacrosse, Wisc., 32 miles to the east.
Services offered by Winona include agricultural fertilizer marketing to the dealer network, blending and packaging of some fertilizers, storage (both short-term and long-term) availability, barge unloading to trucks and rail, rail unloading to trucks, and high speed inbound/outbound handling with conditioners.
Winona was formed in 1993 and is one of the newer river terminals on the upper Mississippi River. It says its business is the sales and distribution of agricultural fertilizers in a four-state area: southeast Minnesota, western Wisconsin, northeast Iowa, and southern Minnesota-extending west into South Dakota along the DME railroad corridor.
Winona says it handles most dry fertilizers – urea, potash, phosphates, and sulfates. In addition to fertilizers, it also has the capacity to store dry commodities for others. Dry storage as of 2003 was around 46,500 st, according to the company’s website. It also has tank space for liquid fertilizers, including UAN and 10-34-0.