Ich weiß leider nicht, was interessant ist und zuviel wollte ich auch nicht Posten, wer noch mehr will, sagt bescheid!!!
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UPDATE - Indonesia state firms buy more imported sugar Wednesday March 17, 5:20 am ET
(Adds details) JAKARTA, March 17 (Reuters) - Indonesian state plantation firm PTPN IX bought 41,250 tonnes of Thai white sugar on Wednesday, bringing the country's total sugar imports this year to 139,250 tonnes.
ADVERTISEMENT The sugar, bought from Singapore-based Weetiong Pty Ltd, was divided into three batches. The first batch was 17,250 tonnes at $239 a tonne cost, insurance and freight (CIF) for mid-April delivery.
The second batch was 15,000 tonnes at $238.5 a tonne CIF for end-April delivery, while the remaining 9,000 tonnes was bought at $239.5 a tonne CIF for end-March delivery.
All the sugar was ICUMSA 100.
ICUMSA, which ranges from 45 to 150, measures the colour of sugar. The lower the ICUMSA level, the higher the sugar's degree of whiteness.
PTPN IX used up all of its import licence, which allows for total purchases of 47,250 tonnes, due to tight company stocks, which spokesman Roeswanto put at 1,000 tonnes.
"The negotiation reached 41,250 tonnes with Weetiong which we divided into three deliveries," said Roeswanto, who like many Indonesians uses one name.
The firm had bought 6,000 tonnes of Thai white sugar on Tuesday from Tate & Lyle (London:TATE.L - News) at $234 a tonne CIF for end-March delivery.
Meanwhile, state plantation firm PTPN XI bought only 12,000 tonnes earlier on Wednesday, from a planned 51,000 tonnes, because of higher price offers and sufficient stocks, currently at 80,000 tonnes, company spokesman Adig Suwandi said.
Cargill (News - Websites) won the 12,000-tonne tender with the cheapest bid at $239.5 per tonne CIF for ICUMSA 150 for delivery to Jakarta and Surabaya ports no later than April 10.
"The sugar should arrive here between March and April 10 at the latest," Suwandi said.
Suwandi said Cargill had the closest bid to the firm's price goal of $236 to $239 per tonne, while Olam offered $242 and Tate & Lyle $243.3.
Indonesia, one of Asia's biggest sugar importers, predicts it will produce 1.8 million tonnes in 2004, well below domestic monthly consumption of some 250,000 tonnes.
The import licences, given to five state plantation and trading firms, are valid until May ahead of the crushing season that normally begins in the third week of May.
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Cargill completes acquisition of Agway feed unit Monday March 15, 2:46 pm ET
CHICAGO, March 15 (Reuters) - Cargill (News - Websites) Inc., the largest private U.S. company, on Monday said it has completed the acquisition of nearly all of the feed and nutrition assets of Agway Inc., a bankrupt cooperative owned by farmers. ADVERTISEMENT Cargill did not disclose financial details, but Agway said on its Web site that the sale price was $22.65 million in cash, more than double the $10 million agreed to by both companies before the sale process went through a public auction.
Syracuse, New York-based Agway had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York to set up a bidding process to see if there were better offers.
Cargill, an agribusiness conglomerate said it acquired the Agway feed mills in Batavia, Binghamton, Canton, Jamestown and Salem in New York and Somerset and Winfield in Pennsylvania.
Agway said on the Web site message posted on Feb. 27 that the court had also approved the sale of three remaining properties not included in the Cargill transaction for $1.16 million in cash. It did not name the buyers.
Agway, which has filed for Chapter 11 protection, had said the Cargill sale would exclude Cooperative Milling LLC, its joint venture with Southern States Cooperative.
Owned by some 69,000 Northeast farmers, Agway filed a plan in a federal court in New York state in January to liquidate its assets as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Secured creditors had claims of about $1.5 million against the cooperative through Dec. 17, according to Agway's court filing. Unsecured lenders' claims total about $1 billion, the co-op estimated.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Cargill Inc., the largest private U.S. company, said on Thursday it agreed to settle for $24 million a class-action lawsuit that sought billions of dollars in damages and accused the company of conspiring with two other firms to fix prices of a common food sweetener. Missed Tech Tuesday? Will the government's anti-terror tactics invade your privacy? Plus, protecting yourself from identity theft and is Wal-Mart watching?
The plaintiffs' attorney said U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mihm on Thursday indicated preliminary approval of the Cargill settlement.
Michael Freed, of Chicago-based Much Shelist Freed Denenberg Ament & Rubenstein P.C., also said the judge appointed a mediator to work out a deal between the plaintiffs and the other co-defendants, Archer Daniels Midland Co (NYSE:ADM - news) and A.E. Staley Manufacturing Co., a unit of Britain-based Tate & Lyle Plc (TATE.L).
The original suit was filed in 1995 by 18 companies that manufacture soft drinks, canned and baked goods and confectionary or dairy products. Plaintiffs involved in the suit, accusing the three firms of fixing prices of high fructose corn sugar, a substitute for sugar, include Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:KO - news) and PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE:PEP - news).
Freed said Mihm has scheduled a final hearing on the Cargill settlement on May 19.
ADM declined to comment, while A.E. Staley spokesman Chris Fox said the company will face the plaintiffs in court.
"We obviously continue to deny any allegation of wrong-doing and are contesting the case," Fox said.
Cargill still denies claims made in the lawsuit and said the settlement amount was roughly what the company would have incurred in legal costs to defend itself and a subsidiary in a trial set for Sept. 7 in Illinois.
"We agreed to settle only after assessing the costs of further litigation," Cargill said in a statement. "We did not engage in any illegal activity."
The lead attorney for the plaintiffs previously had said he would seek combined damages of $1.4 billion from the three companies, an amount that could be tripled to $4.2 billion under federal antitrust laws for an alleged conspiracy that the plaintiffs say began in the late 1980s and ended in mid-1995.
Freed declined to give the reasons behind the settlement with Cargill, but said the plaintiffs would continue to seek the $1.4 billion in damages from ADM and A.E. Staley.
The lawsuit grew out of a federal investigation into Decatur, Illinois-based ADM's involvement in a price-fixing scandal. ADM pleaded guilty to fixing the prices of lysine -- a protein used in animal feed -- and citric acid in 1996.
Three former ADM executives, Michael Andreas, Terry Wilson and Mark Whitacre, received prison sentences in 1999 as part of the scandal. The U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) investigated but never brought charges against ADM for high fructose corn syrup.
Last year, ADM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer G. Allen Andreas said the company believes the court will find no evidence that ADM conspired to fix prices of high fructose corn syrup.
His remarks came after the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) let stand an appellate court ruling that ADM can be sued for fixing prices of high fructose corn syrup.
A federal judge in Illinois dismissed the 1995 lawsuit in 2001, but a U.S. appeals court based in Chicago reinstated the lawsuit in 2002, clearing the way for the case to go to trial.
ADM, Cargill and A.E. Staley all filed separate appeals. They argued the appeals court was wrong in allowing the case to go forward based on "conjectural" evidence.
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gruß Nickitas |