Brazil's Raizen says direct sugar sales rise to 50% after end of joint venture

By Marcelo Teixeira

NEW YORK, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Brazil's Raizen SA, the world's largest sugar-making company, has increased direct sales for its sugar to 50% following the end of its joint venture with Asian commodities trader Wilmar International .

According to Raizen's Chief Strategy Officer Paula Kovarsky, the company has managed to quickly develop its sugar trading team to reach out directly to clients around the world as it seeks to sell up to 90% of the sugar it produces without intermediaries by 2030.

Raizen and Wilmar formed RAW, a joint venture, in 2016 to rival the world's largest sugar trader Alvean, which at that time was also a JV between Brazil's Copersucar and Cargill.

Trading sources told Reuters in 2020 that Raizen and Wilmar had ended the JV, although both companies never confirmed it.

"We had the partnership with Wilmar, which was terminated, and we learned from that, we built our trading desk, a team to manage pricing and hedging and we went to the next step which was to reach the final client," Kovarsky said in an interview late on Tuesday in New York.

Last year, Copersucar reached an agreement to buy Cargill's share in Alvean to become the sole owner of the trading company, which moves around 12 million tonnes of sugar per year (see link for story below).

Raizen is producing nearly 5 million tonnes of sugar per year as it consolidates the acquisition of Louis Dreyfus mills. The company manages 35 plants in Brazil.

Kovarsky did not confirm information that the company was in talks to buy BP Bunge Bioenergia, the sugar and ethanol company owned by BP Plc and Bunge Ltd.

She said, however, that the company "is always looking at good opportunities."

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Paul Simao)