Thai group to buy into Maryborough Sugar

A major Asian company looks set to secure a large slice of Queensland's sugar industry.

Thailand's Mitr Phol Sugar Corp has entered an agreement to buy a 19.9 per cent share of Maryborough Sugar Factory in southern Queensland.

Mitr will buy the shares from Sir Ron Brierley's Guinness Peat Group, which owns a 24.5 per cent stake of Maryborough Sugar.

Simon Mordant from Greenhill Caliburn, the group advising Maryborough Sugar, says the offer is subject to a number of conditions.

"14.9 per cent can be sold without Foreign Investment Review Board approval and the balance - the 5 per cent - is subject to the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board," he said.

Maryborough Sugar owns mills at Maryborough and Mulgrave, near Cairns in far north Queensland, and has agreed to a joint venture with Bundaberg Sugar to combine the two groups' north Queensland mills.

source: abc.net.au