Tate & Lyle PLC: Conditional sale of monosodium glutamate unit to Ajinomoto

Tate & Lyle PLC ("Tate & Lyle") announces that it has today entered into an agreement for the sale of its monosodium glutamate (MSG) production unit in France to Ajinomoto Co., Inc. ("Ajinomoto"). The sale is conditional on approval by the competition authorities of a number of countries. The transaction will be the sale of the shares in Orsan S.A. ("Orsan"), held by Amylum France, a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle. These shares represent 80.39% of the issued capital of Orsan (this percentage will rise to 87.68% by the time of completion due to a pre-completion reorganisation of Orsan). Ajinomoto is the minority shareholder with, currently, 19.61% of the shares in issue (12.32% by the time of completion). Orsan operates the MSG plant adjacent to the Amylum France wheat processing plant in Nesle. The Orsan and Amylum France operations have been fully segregated so Amylum France will not be affected by the sale operationally, although it will continue to provide utilities, feed stock and other services to Ajinomoto under long term agreements. The sale excludes Orsan’s 51% shareholding in Orsan Guangzhou Gourmet Powder Company Limited ("Orsan China") which produces MSG in China. At 31March 2002, Orsan S. A. (excluding Orsan China) had a total net asset value of £42 million and losses before tax attributable to these net assets in the 12 months to 31 March 2002 amounted to £6.5 million. In the six months to 30 September 2002, the business broke even. Proceeds of the sale will be used to reduce Group debt. The anticipated loss on disposal will be £14.5 million (which includes £9.1 million of goodwill previously written off to reserves) Larry Pillard, Tate & Lyle PLC Chief Executive comments: "The disposal is another step in Tate & Lyle's ongoing strategy to divest of non-core or underperforming businesses and product lines."