Tory grandee backs farm firm flotation
A FARMING firm with links to former Tory cabinet minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind is to float in a joint London and Dublin stock market listing.
Continental Farmers Group, an Isle of Man based agricultural firm that primarily operates in Eastern Europe, is to list on London’s alternative investment market (Aim).
The company, valued at about £40m, will list later this month although it is not yet known how much money it plans to raise.
It will also list on Dublin’s enterprise securities market.
Sir Malcolm, former foreign secretary under John Major, is a senior independent non-executive director at the company.
The Tory grandee’s involvement will lend weight to the firm, which farms 22,100 hectares of leased land in the Ukraine and Poland.
The float is expected to raise proceeds to fund expansion, fuelling the company’s plans to increase its leasehold land bank in the Ukraine to more than 50,000 hectares within five years.
Established in 1994 by Scottish farming entrepreneur Mark Laird, the company has the backing of several high-profile Scottish and Irish investors including Alastair Salvesen, the seafood tycoon.
Continental Farmers is part of a growing number of international firms operating across western Ukraine and northern Poland. It farms a variety of crops including potatoes, wheat, maize and oil seed rape.