China’s COSCO SHIPPING Holdings to pay over $800 million for 5.8% stake in COFCO Fortune

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s COSCO SHIPPING Holdings has agreed to pay 5.5 billion yuan ($814 million) to buy a 5.8% stake in COFCO Fortune, a food processing and logistics unit of Chinese state agricultural conglomerate COFCO.

According to a COSCO SHIPPING Holdings stock exchange filing late on Monday, the deal is part of a COFCO Fortune capital increase plan. On completion of the capital raising deal, COFCO and other units of the conglomerate will retain a combined 69.8% stake in COFCO Fortune, down from 89.7% previously.

COSCO SHIPPING Holdings, an affiliate of state-owned shipping group China COSCO SHIPPING Corporation, said it and COFCO Fortune will explore operations involving resources such as container yards, warehouses and terminal ports.

Other investors subscribing to COFCO Fortune’s capital increase include several state-linked entities, such as the management council of China’s basic pension insurance fund and the asset management arm of China Life Insurance, said COSCO SHIPPING Holdings.

Houke Fulin, a fund linked to private equity firm Hopu Investments, also participated in the capital increase, said the filing.

In 2021 COFCO Fortune entered a ‘tutoring’ phase ahead of a planned initial public offering (IPO) in mainland China, a process in China where bankers coach company executives on IPO-related issues, documents from the Chinese securities regulator’s website showed.

($1 = 6.7602 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Kane Wu; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)