The Financial Supervision commission okayed the IPO prospectus of Agria Group Hold today. The issue consists of 1,700,000 new shares with a face value of 1 lev. The issue value per share has been set between 9 and 13 leva.

The holding operates in the areas of agribusiness and food processing.

The maximum amount of capital that the IPO can generate is 22,100,000 leva (11.230 mln euros). In an interview for Profit.bg. Emil Raykov, CEO and chairman of the Board of Directors, expressed hopes that the company will be able to IPO by the end of the year.

The company will use half of the funds in the construction of a biodiesel plant.

The rest will be used to increase the capital of subsidiaries in order to enhance modernization of production, to increase production capacity, to acquire necessary equipment under EU operating programs, to acquire arable land plots, and new equipment under the operating program for Competitiveness etc.

the core activity of some subsidiaries (Kristera Agro and Agro EOOD) is agribusiness, i e land cultivation, grain cultivation (wheat, corn, sunflower, oil-bearing cole-seed), as well as services in the area of agricultural technology.

The company is currently cultivating 55,000 decares of land, and the aim is to have 85,000 decares by 2012, of which Agria will own 15-20,000 decares.

Another area, in which subsidiaries are working (Kristera JSC and Corn-K JSC) is processing industry. The company has a mill-factory in Popovo with a capacity of 35,000 tonnes per year, and an adjacent storage facility with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes, which is also the biggest grain storage facility operating in compliance with the Law on trade and storage of grain.

The third area of activity is production of bread and other bakery products in our bread-making plants under the Corn Label in Varna, Gorna Oriahovitsa and Shumen. The market share of the company's bread plants in north-east Bulgaria is around 25%.

In 2006, consolidated net sales revenues stood at 47.4 mln leva (24.235 mln euros), and the figures are projected to grow 100% to 98.6 mln leva (50.413 mln euros) by 2012. Consolidated 2006 profit came to 617,000 leva (315,467 mln euros), and for H1 2007 it is 900,000 leva (460,162 euros). This year's profit is estimated at 1.758 mln leva (898,851 euros). According to prognosis, profit will reach nearly 10 mln leva (5.112 mln euros) by 2012.