Kansas City-based Bartlett Grain Company has announced a plan to acquire Ceres Global Ag Corp. and take the publicly-traded grain company private in a deal worth US$140.1 million.
Ceres is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, and operates facilities at 10 locations in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota, with 29 million bushels of storage capacity.
Ceres’ operations in Western Canada include the Delmar Commodities grain handling and Jordan Mills soybean crush businesses in Manitoba, which it acquired in 2019. The company owns the Northgate Terminal on the Canada-U.S. border at Northgate, Saskatchewan, and the Nicklen Siding Grain Elevator at Ridgedale, Saskatchewan, as well.
Ceres also has ownership stakes in several agricultural joint ventures, including the Stewart Southern Railway Inc. short-line in southeast Saskatchewan, the Berthold Farmers Elevator in North Dakota, and Farmers Grain in Minnesota.
Founded in 1907, Bartlett has operations in the U.S. and Mexico. The company merchandises and processes wheat, food-type corn, and soybeans, producing flour and renewable fuels, among other products, and is a leading U.S. exporter of grain to Mexico. Bartlett is also a strategic partner with Azure Sustainable Fuels Corp. in its quest to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at a large-scale, with potential sites in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Kansas under review.
Ceres’ board has unanimously approved the offer from Bartlett that pays US$4.50 per share, a more than 150 per cent premium over Ceres’ closing share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange on May 16 of US$2.49.
Bartlett says shareholders representing 70 per cent of Ceres’ shares have entered agreements to vote in favour of the deal. It is also subject to the usual regulatory approvals, but the companies say they expect to close the transaction in late second quarter or early third quarter of 2025.
“Bartlett’s acquisition of Ceres is vindication of the strategy we set out to achieve 12 years ago, which is to build the company into one of North America’s leading merchandisers of durum, oats, spring wheat, and canola,” says Jim Vanasek, Ceres’ board chair, in the announcement. “I believe Bartlett is a perfect fit in terms of geography, business lines, and culture, and will take Ceres to the next level.”
