MILAN – London-based commodity trading house Armajaro Holdings Ltd. said on Monday it had entered into an agreement to sell its soft commodities trading unit to Swiss Ecom Agroindustrial Corp., the world’s second-biggest coffee and third-largest cocoa trader. This will create one of the leading suppliers of sustainably sourced soft commodities.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
According to reports, Ecom Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alain Poncelet will become Amajaro Trading’s chief executive, taking over from Richard Gower who will remain as an adviser to the company.
“Our stakeholders in both companies will benefit greatly from the combined service offerings and strengths of the companies,”, Ecom’s chief executive officer Andrew Halle said in a statement. “It moves us further down the path of being the leading integrated soft-commodity company.”
Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. Ltd is a global commodity trading and processing company specializing in coffee, cotton, and cocoa in major producing and consuming countries, with ancillary agricultural operations in oilseeds.
Ecom is one of the world’s top three merchants in coffee, one of the largest coffee millers in the world, and among the top five merchants in both cotton and cocoa.
In 1935, Ecom Agroindustrial opened its first coffee office in São Paulo, Brazil. Since then, the Ecom Coffee Group has expanded its partnerships across five continents to become the second-largest coffee trader in the world.
Armajaro Holdings Limited is a diversified holding company.
Based in the United Kingdom, over 2,000 people currently work for its subsidiary and associated companies worldwide.
Armajaro Trading Limited is a global soft commodity trading house and supply chain manager founded in 1998 and is one of the world’s largest traders in soft commodities.
