Cygnet Agro Group Raises US$ 66 Million and Makes Two Acquisitions Consolidating 37,500 Hectares of Prime Corn Belt Land in the Ukraine. Private Equity Funding from Investors Advised by Talis Capital

LONDON, September 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Funding used for acquisitions, CAPEX and OPEX allowing full farming of the acquired acreage

Cygnet Agro, a group of companies wholly owned by Jersey based Goldcrest Agroholding Limited, today announced a US$ 66 million round of funding from investors advised by Talis Capital Limited. The investment came as a mixture of equity and debt and a further $20m of equity will be raised in Q4 2012 to replace the debt part.

Talis Capital, a London-based private equity investment advisory firm organized this investment having worked with the Cygnet management team on a previous smaller but highly successful Enselco Agro deal - sold in September 2011 for almost US$ 60m booking 2x net cash/cash returns to the investors in just 2 years.

Cygnet Agro group consolidated 37,500 hectares in two prime corn belt clusters: 25,600 hectares in a Vinnitsa/Zhitomir cluster and 11,900 hectares in Khmelnitsky. Cygnet has managed to bring 95% of the new land under cultivation straight away. The crop rotation will concentrate on corn and soya. Part of the acquisition was also a sugar plant and dairy farms. Cygnet will also build two dryers-elevators.

Vasile Foca, director and co-founder of Talis Capital said "We are excited about these two top quality acquisitions that happened so fast after the successful disposal of the previous agricultural venture. Cygnet will be managed by the same proven team which gives us and the investors great confidence".

Matus Maar, director and co-founder of Talis Capital added "We firmly believe that with world's growing population investments in agricultural commodities is the right medium/long term strategy but you need the right management team, right crop rotation and the right location - and Cygnet has it all."

According to the Talis Capital's extensive internal review of various agricultural locations by quality of soil, weather, export infrastructure, land consolidation availability and potential financial returns, the Ukrainian central/west corn belt is the most ideal.

Cygnet is already on target in 2012 to harvest 130,000 tonnes of crop and make profit of at least US$ 9m. This will increase to 200,000 tonnes and US$ 25m profit the following years when the crop rotation is fully applied.

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