Saturday, March 3, 2007

Bunge Ltd. (BG)




BUSINESS SUMMARY

Bunge Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as an agribusiness and food retail company worldwide. The company operates in three divisions: Agribusiness, Fertilizer, and Food Products. Agribusiness division purchases, stores, transports, processes, and sells agricultural commodities, such as grains and oilseeds, including soybeans, sunflower seed, rapeseed or canola, wheat, and corn; and commodity products, including meal, hulls, and crude and further processed oils. It sells these products to oilseed processors, feed manufacturers, wheat and corn millers, and edible oil processing companies, as well as to livestock, poultry, and aquaculture producers. Fertilizer division produces and supplies fertilizers to farmers in South America. This division participates in mining and processing of phosphate ore and production of phosphate-based products. Its primary products include phosphate rock, sulfuric acid, single super phosphate, phosphoric acid, and dicalcium phosphate used for various crops, including soybeans, corn, sugar cane, wheat, and coffee. This division also involves in retail operations consisting of production, distribution, and sale of mixed NPK formulas, mixed nutrients, and other fertilizer products directly to retailers, processing and trading companies, and farmers. Food Products division offers edible oil products, including bottled, packaged, and bulk oils, as well as shortenings, margarine, mayonnaise, and other products derived from the vegetable oil refining process; and milling products, such as wheat flours and corn products comprising dry milled corn grits, meal and flours, and soy-fortified corn meal and corn-soy blend. It also produces corn oil and corn feed products. This division sells its products to food processors, foodservice companies, and retail outlets, as well as to government agencies. Bunge Limited was founded by Johann Peter Gottlieb Bunge in 1818 and is headquartered in White Plains, New York.