Olam Group's shares dropped by as much as 6.95% after the announcement that the planned separate listing of Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) on the London Stock Exchange has been postponed, given market conditions negatively hit by the war in Ukraine.
OFI's IPO was slated to take place during the 2Q2022, and besides the primary listing in London, there will also be a concurrent secondary listing in Singapore.
“We remain committed to pursuing a public listing of the business and will evaluate the appropriate timing of such a listing on an ongoing basis, taking into account prevailing market conditions,” says the company in a bourse filing on the morning of March 24.
In the same announcement, OFI announced the appoint of three non-executive directors to its board.
They are: Nancy Cruickshank, Nagi Hamiyeh and Sunny Verghese.
Cruickshank is currently serving as a non-executive director on the boards of In The Style Group plc, Oodle Finance Ltd, Allegro EU SA and Flutter Entertainment plc. She was previously a Non-Executive Director at Bango plc, Carlsberg Group A/S, OnMobile Global Ltd and Telecity Group plc.
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During her career, Cruickshank was also the chief digital officer for Carlsberg until 2021.
Hamiyeh is a non-executive director of Olam Group. He has over 28 years of experience in strategy, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, growth equity, private equity and public investing in multiple industries across the globe.
Hamiyeh is currently the joint head of Temasek’s investment group, where he also holds the position of being the head of portfolio development.
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Finally, Verghese is the group CEO of Olam Group. He is also the CEO of Olam Agri after the re-organisation within Olam International. Verghese founded Olam in 1989 after having been with the Kewalram Chanrai Group (KC Group) in India. He was also chair of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) from 2018 to 2021.
On the appointments, Niall FitzGerald, chair of the board welcomed the three additions to the board.
“The extensive and complementary experience of our board members demonstrates our commitment to build a board that is skilled, diverse and meets best practice corporate governance standards. We share the same commitment to provide strong stewardship to ofi and to enable Shekhar and his talented management team to deliver sustainable and profitable growth with measurable social and environmental impact,” he says.
OFI’s CEO A Shekhar adds, “Along with my management team and my board colleagues, it is my pleasure to welcome Nancy, Nagi and Sunny to the ofi board. We continue the process of building a strong inaugural board to lead us as we embark on ofi’s next phase of evolution to become a UK listed plc. I look forward to working closely with all the directors in our exciting journey ahead.”
As at 9.37am, Olam Group shares traded at $1.75, down 6.42%.
