japanese giant nisshin oillio to set up in spain

Asian vegetable oil giant, nisshin oillio, has paid nearly €26 million to acquire 85% of industrial química lasem (iql), subsidiary of a major catalan agro-food group.

this move gives the japanese firm its first industrial pied-a-terre in europe through which it aims to enter the spanish, french, german and italian markets in an initial phase.

 nisshin oillio has an annual turnover of some €2.5 billion with 90% coming from sales of oil in asia, where it is market leader. the remaining 10% of turnover is derived from the chemical sector, above all from lubricants, in addition to revenue from base components for cosmetics. it is precisely this latter segment which the japanese have chosen to compete in with the european firms. prior to this, nisshin oillio’s presence on the continent was limited to a sales office in germany, as they lacked production capacity here.

source: expansión, 29/03/2011