Dreyfus takes over Brazil's Santelisa

The Brazilian unit of French commodities group Louis Dreyfus said on Tuesday it agreed to take over Brazilian firm Santelisa Vale to create the world's second largest sugar cane processor.
Local unit Louis Dreyfus Commodities Bioenergia and Santelisa Vale said the new venture, called LDC-SEV, will control 13 sugar and ethanol plants and have annual cane crushing capacity of 40 million tonnes, second only to Brazil's Cosan.
Louis Dreyfus and a group of financial partners pledged 800 million reais ($460.6 million) to the venture, the French group said, adding that it will also assume an undisclosed amount of debt.
Dreyfus will hold a 60 percent stake, Santelisa Vale shareholders will have 18 percent, third party investors 9 percent and the remaining 13 percent will be in the hands of banks Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Brazil's state-run development bank BNDES, LDC-SEV Chief Executive Bruno Melcher said.