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Colombia\'s National Federation of Coffee Growers has sold 20 million pesos ($9 million) worth of shares in the company that manages its Juan Valdez coffee shops and is in talks with a "multilateral organization" about selling a second stake.
Colombia's National Federation of Coffee Growers has sold 20 million pesos ($9 million) worth of shares in the company that manages its Juan Valdez coffee shops and is in talks with a "multilateral organization" about selling a second stake, an official said Wednesday.
The sale by the federation, or Fedecafe, of a 15.75% stake in Procafecol S.A. was finalized on Wednesday and closed with all 2 million preferred shares sold to small coffee farmers, Felipe Sardi, Procafecol's Chief Financial Officer, told Dow Jones Newswires.
"It's a total success," Sardi said, adding: "We want the small coffee growers to share part of the profit."
Prior to Wednesday's auction, Fedecafe held 99.05% of the shares in Procafecol, which owns the Juan Valdez brand and the coffee shop chain run under the name of Colombia's most famous coffee farmer, who is pictured smiling next to his mule on Colombian coffee bags across the world.
The 2 million preferred shares were sold without voting rights at COP10,000 each ($1=COP2,224.5) to 21,700 individual coffee growers, Sardi said.
The minimum investment a coffee producer had to place in order to participate was for two shares and the maximum amount of shares was set at 15,000 per producer.
Sardi said the capital generated from the sale is to be used toward expanding the Juan Valdez coffee shop chain locally and abroad, adding the company now is considering selling a second stake to a multilateral partner.
"The board of Procafecol authorized us to launch another sale round. We are still evaluating when to carry it out and whether we will sell those shares to coffee growers or to the public in general," he said.
As part of that second round Procafecol has started formal talks with a "multilateral organization" to sell it a stake in the company, Sardi said, but declined to name the organization or provide further details of the talks so far.
During the first five years the coffee growers will be able to sell their shares back to Fedecafe. After that, Fedecafe plans to list Procafecol on the Colombian stock exchange, where shares will be freely traded, he added.
Procafecol currently operates about 60 Juan Valdez coffee shops, including nine in the U.S. and two in Spain, but Sardi said the company target is to have 110 shops opened by the end of 2007 and 300 coffee shops by 2009.
The company also sells Juan Valdez coffee products including high-quality roast and ground beans in 320 supermarkets in the United States and soon expect to launch sales in Mexican supermarkets, Sardi said.
The company recently entered the soft drinks market with "Cafecolas" and also owns Pod Col Coffee Ltd., which sells "single-serve" coffee pods" via Wal-Mart (WMT).