The Buenos Aires food company Molino Cañuelas, with a large presence in provincial territory, owes about $ 1.4 billion and its creditors have been without payment for months. Among the leaders of the agro-industrial sector, there is a version that could be expropriated. He has debts in situation 5 – uncollectible – for 20,571 million pesos and a liability of 8,322 million pesos in Compañía Argentina de Granos.
In January 2018, the company was indebted for about 760 million dollars and with projections to continue taking debt to get financial order. With the advice of Merrill Lynch, the company’s exit to the Buenos Aires and New York stock exchanges was designed, a way to raise some 330 million dollars with which to reduce their bank debts.
However, two waves of devaluations shook the country and the Stock Exchange never had enough investors, so the company again asked the banks for money, taking its debts to $ 1.4 billion, until financing ended and A long negotiation with ups and downs began. In March last year, Banco Macro directly filed for bankruptcy amid rumors of fraudulent maneuvers, sector sources explained to this newspaper.
The almost 40 creditors -including also Banco Nación, HSBC, Rabobank and Galicia. Sources of the financial sector affirm that the debts with Galicia debts amount to 30 million dollars, with Rabobank 15 million and with HSBC, 50 million dollars.
Molino Cañuelas has 11 plants. In the province of Buenos Aires they are located in the towns of Pilar, Chacabuco, San Justo, Tres Arroyos, Cañuelas and Pigüé; in Santa Fe, in the Capital and in Rosario; in Resistencia, Chaco; in Realicó, La Pampa; in Salta Capital; and in Adelia María, in Córdoba.
In turn, Molino Florencia, a company of the Cañuelas Group, has two plants in the province of Córdoba, one in Córdoba Capital and the other in Laboulaye.
Molino Cañuelas owns the “9 de oro” brands, the Pureza, Cañuelas, Trigalia and Molinos Florencia flours, the Mamá Cocina line, the Cañuelas oils and also the frozen bakery products sold to supermarkets. And it has an agro-export leg through the Argentine Grain Company and the Las Palmas port terminal in Zárate, where it consolidated as a food producer.
STRONG PLAYER IN THE MARKET
As for milling, Molinos Cañuelas grinds between 25 to 30 percent of the national mill with about 130,000 tons of bread wheat per month. Likewise, the company mills candeal wheat -for pasta manufacturing- at the Pilar plant (Province of Buenos Aires), with a participation that ranges between 15 and 18 percent of the national milling, ranging from 3,500 to 4,000 tons per month.
Cañuelas competes in white wheat with Compañía Molinera del Sur SACEI (Plant in Bahía Blanca) with a production that ranges between 26 and 27 percent (6,500 / 7,000 tons per month), with Molinos Río de la Plata with a 35 38 percent of the milling with about 7,500 to 8,000 tons per month and Molino Tres Arroyos, which grinds 12 and 13 percent of the wheat with 3,500 to 3,800 tons per month.
In wheat flour, with a production of between 130,000 and 140,000 tons per month, it has a total participation – added Molino Cañuelas and Molinos Florencia – of 30 percent of the national total and 15 to 18 percent of the milling of Argentine wheat.
THE DIVERSIFICATION
The Group has several divisions:
Molinos Cañuelas SA that is dedicated to the milling of wheat, with 11 plants throughout the country. If it is linked to Molinos Florencia, which has 2 more mills, it reaches 13 plants in the country of bread wheat and canadian wheat milling. In addition to oil production.
Argentine Grain Company, collects cereals and oilseeds. It is the group’s grain exporter.
Export logistics is done through Molca SA, which operates in Terminal Las Palmas, in Zárate.
Agricultural and cotton production with the company Aldo Navilli y Hno. SA.
In addition to the agro-industrial part, it has positions in the Finexcor refrigerator, one of the main exporters of Argentine meat.
On the other hand, it also owns companies related to textile manufacturing (Viu SA) that sells clothing through the Vitamina brand.
Among other items, it also owns the Cañuelas Golf Club and Tiendas Gourmet SAU.
Complainant
Federal judge Julián Ercolini accepted the National Bank yesterday as a plaintiff in the case investigating alleged criminal offenses that the previous administration would have committed by granting millionaire credits to the Santafesina cereal company Vicentin-
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