The Danish plantation brothers, Bek-Nielsen, from Holstebro buys land in Malaysia to expand their Malaysian palm oil company. The DKK 640 million deal will be the company’s biggest acquisition of land to this date.
If everything goes according to plan the acquisition of a neighboring plantation in Malaysia will be “our so far biggest direct acquisition moneywise,” according to Carl Bek-Nielsen, the CED of United Plantation, in an interview brought by Dagbladet Holstebro-Struer. The deal is expected to take effect in the first quarter of 2019.
The neighboring plantation is currently owned by Pinehill Pacific and the deal will mean that UP will expand their land with almost 9000 acres or the equivalent of about 3600 hectares. This will increase UP’s land possessions in Malaysia by ten per cent to a total of approximately 44,500 hectares and make it one of the ten biggest plantations in Malaysia. The plantation from Pinehill Pacific is right next to their current plantation thus making it easier for them to achieve economies of scale.
UP have a sustainability policy about not clearing forest and jungle areas. Since the new land area has been palm oil plantation for many years, the acquisition is in accordance with the UP’s policy.
“Within the next three years, we expect to replant most of the area purchased with UP’s high-performance palms, which have been developed at our own research and development center, and we expect to increase the profit significantly over the next four to six years,” Carl Bek-Nielsen says to Dagbladet Holstebro-Struer.
United Plantations became an international group after Børge Bek-Nielsen in the early fifties moved from Holstebro to Malaysia and helped expanding the old Danish company. His two sons, Carl and Martin, are both born in Malaysia but educated in Denmark. Carl Bek-Nielsen is now the Chief Executive Director (CED) and Martin Bek-Nielsen is the Executive Director for Finance and Marketing.
