DLH has concluded a conditional agreement to acquire the Gabonese enterprise Compagnie Forestière des Abeilles (CFA), which owns 200,000 hectares of forest concessions in Gabon. DLH is already the owner of approximately 130,000 hectares of forest concessions in Gabon.
In addition, DLH owns sawmill and kiln-drying facilities in the city of Port Gentil as well as procurement and sales offices in Port Gentil and the capital Libreville.
CFA has been a long term sub-contractor and trading partner of DLH. The work of expanding forest production, including the company’s own forest concessions, will start by establishing forest management plans followed by steps towards FSC-certification. Parallel to this process investments will be made to increase harvesting equipment as well as to expand sawmill capacity. Total investments including the acquisition of CFA will amount to approximately DKK 40 million (EUR 5.36 million) over a couple of years.
By this acquisition and the subsequent investments in sustainable forestry and further processing, DLH will obtain a good balance between its own production and timber exports from other suppliers since the existing export quota arrangements in Gabon are based on these ratios.
Only modest increases in external revenue are expected since CFA has almost exclusively supplied the former DLH in Gabon.
The investments will strengthen the group’s efforts of increased supply of certified tropical timber and increase earnings accordingly.
The acquisition is expected to be completed within two months.
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