Joint Acquisition of Australian Frozen Dough Business by Asia's top Flour Mill Group Prima Limited and Sumitomo Corporation

Prima Limited (Head Office: Singapore; Chairman & CEO: Primus Cheng; "Prima") and Sumitomo Corporation (Head Office: Chuo-Ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Kuniharu Nakamura; "Sumitomo"), will jointly acquire Australian frozen dough business and its assets previously controlled by the Yarrows group of companies ("Yarrows Group") with its Head Office in Manaia, New Zealand, the largest Frozen Dough manufacturer in Oceania.

Yarrows Group supplies frozen dough products to quick service restaurants and in-store bakeries in Oceania, as well as to SubwayR Restaurants (Oceania SubwayR Regional Office: Brisbane AUS) in the region and in Asia*.  Suprima Frozen Foods Pty Ltd ("Suprima"), newly established by Prima and Sumitomo, each holding 40%, together with the current management holding 20% stake, will inherit the manufacturing facilities of Yarrows Group in Sydney and Perth, Australia, as well as its client base. The two plants together, the market share of frozen dough (excluding pastries) reaches to approximately 90% in Australia.  Suprima will focus to grow the business in the Australian bakery market which showed a constant growth of 2.2-2.6% per annum in the last decade, especially in the segment of food service including quick service restaurant, which is expected to grow more than 4% per annum.

The acquisition is considered to be another fruit under the Collaboration Agreement signed between Prima and Sumitomo in 2006, where businesses and investments related to flour milling and its products in Asia are targeted.  Both companies will seek synergies between Suprima and its existing businesses, such as, Sumitomo's Australian grain origination business (Emerald; Head Office: Melbourne, Australia) or the Chinese flour mill joint venture by Prima and Sumitomo (Xinghua Cereal & Foods; Head Office: Qindao, PRC), to further expand into the food service industry in Asia.  The Companies wish to contribute to enhancing consumer's choices on westernized food in the region, by connecting the value chain from grain to downstream flour products.

*  The SubwayR restaurant chain is the world's largest submarine sandwich franchise, with more than 37,000 locations in 100 countries.  Established in 1965, in Connecticut, USA, today there are over 1550 SubwayR restaurants in Oceania.