Yara International ASA has agreed to sell its NPK liquid fertilizer production and marketing assets in Brazil to FassAgro, the fertilizer business owned by Brazilian group ENG and based in Sertãozinho (São Paulo state), according to a Valor International report. The specific assets and the purchase price were not disclosed.
Neither Yara nor FassAgro issued a statement or announcement about the sale. According to the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), Brazil’s competition regulator, the assets involved in the sale are in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Mato Grosso do Sul.
CADE documents said Yara wants to raise funds to “reallocate capital,” while FassAgro said the acquisition will “expand its activities in the fertilizer sector,” which Valor International estimated at roughly 10% of the NPK final fertilizer market in Brazil. CADE has approved the transaction without restrictions.
According to CADE, the ENG Group operates in the fertilizer industry only through FassAgro and is not present in any of the other links in the agricultural inputs production chain. FassAgro makes sporadic sales of phosphoric acid and urea not consumed by its own production of NPK fertilizers, but the company does not produce basic nitrogen fertilizers.