MISURATA (CI MENA) -- Alnaseem Dairy, the Misurata-based privately held dairy group, is open to selling a minority stake in the business to fund growth, company chairman Mohamed Raied said.

 In an interview at the company’s headquarters in Misurata, Raied said that he would consider selling a 20 percent stake in the company to better allow the group to expand its current operations and enter into new business segments such milk, poultry and beef production.

However, Raied said the family own company has no intention of selling the company and that it has already rejected a takeover offer by France’s Danone group in 2009.

Alnaseem – which produces ice cream, milk, edible oil, yogurt, mineral water – has a 2012 turnover of USD 150m with a profit margin and expects sales to rise to USD 250m in 2013, Raied said.

 “Next month we have a new production line coming on line so our total output should rise to 300 tons of dairy products to about 800 tons,” he said.

 He said he is open to an initial public offering of the company in the future once the country institutes the regulatory and corporate governance framework necessary to properly value the company.

Jibriel Raied, the general manager of the company’s Anjma Edible Oil Company and TNT Express Libyan partner Hudhud Worldwide Logistics, said the company is looking at launching carton packaging unit and agriculture production in the country.

Raied said he decided to enter the dairy market in 1990s because “I knew that the Qadaffi regime and its cronies would have no interest in running a yogurt and milk business.”

Raied became a leader during the Libyan revolution and is currently the business leader of the Libya’ emerging business center of Misurata.

Alnaseem employs 1,000 workers and pays double of the state sector salaries and strives for best practice in everything the company does from equipment, production and human resources, Mohamed Raied said..

In fact, Alnaseem Diary production facilities in Misurata could be mistaken for a state-of –the-art dairy plant in Italy and France. 

Mohamed and Jibriel Raied held initial talks with Cesena, Italy-based family-owned Gruppo Martini meat and feedstock concern but talks broke down after Gruppo Martini said the company was only interested in recovering USD 20m in alleged debts owed to them dating back to the 1990s.  

Alnaseem’s Mohamed and Jibriel Raied said they would like to pursue talks with companies similar to Martin, with the aim of establishing a feed stock plant in Libya and in the future poultry and cattle production in the area.

Martini’s corporate advisor, Advicorp CEO Andrea Mandel-Mantello, attended Fleming -Gulf’s Libya Summit in Tripoli on November 20-22 to hold strategic talks with Alnaseem and other private sector group such as the prominent HB Group controlled by the Hosni Bey family. 

The Libya Summit  was also attended by representatives of London-based private equity concern Terra Firma, Cisco, and officials from the International Finance Corporation and lawyers from Clyde & Co.

 By PK Semler in Misurata and Tripoli, Libya.  For more information please call 202-549-3399 or email: pks@capitolintelgroup.com or analyst@intellinews.com.