The national company “Forafriq” will be the first Moroccan company and even African, to succeed in its entry on the American stock exchange of the “NASDAQ”. To do this, however, it had to merge with Globis Acquisition Corp., acquired in 2014 by Yariv Elbaz. Globis is a company specializing in stock exchange, asset acquisition and mergers. Forafrik goes public valued at around 300 million dollars (around 2.7 billion dirhams).
Founded in 1926, Forafrik is a company specializing in the processing of cereals. Today it is a large group in the field of industrial mills, and it has several brands of flour, semolina, pasta and couscous products that it markets in Morocco and a number of countries, particularly in Africa. Today, the Forafrik group is considered to be the first African and Moroccan company specializing in the agri-food industry listed on the American stock exchange of NASDAQ based in Morocco.
The group has strong growth opportunities and targets a large market and huge needs in terms of food security. Listing its shares on the stock exchange will allow it to generate cash income to support its strategy of improving regional and continental distribution in order to achieve sustainable profits and contribute to food security. According to the data of this process, it will be included, the shares of the Moroccan company are listed on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol “AFRI”, after months of discussions with its partner “Globes”.
Pending official US regulators, Globis will move to Gibraltar with a new name, Forafric Global PLC. Forafrik holds more than 10 percent of the market share in Morocco and has one of the largest industrial, logistic and commercial footprints of the second most populous continent in the world. The Moroccan company has a storage capacity of around 250,000 tons, it has seven production units that produce 2,200 tons per day, and two major brands are “Tria” and “Maymouna”, and its products are distributed in 45 country. The group also manages the value chain from the supply of raw materials to finished products. During the current year, it has acquired industrial mill units in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Commenting on the New York Stock Exchange listing process, Saad Bendidi, President of ForaFric, said: “We are proud to be the first Moroccan company based in the Kingdom and the first African agricultural trading company to go public in the United States.“. And Bendidi to add, “The merger with “Globes” will provide the company with additional capital to enrich its strategic plans, and the IPO will give it a better view of its clients, partners and potential investors.“. Bendidi further pointed out that “the new stage of the company represents an important step in its history“, Indicating that”Morocco is a gateway to Africa and a good starting point for expanding and improving the scope of the operation, to achieve sustainable profitability and to support a secure supply of cereals“. For his part, Paul Packer, Chairman and CEO of Globes, said he was delighted to partner with Forafrik to create shareholder value, “based on its long history of responding to large and growing unmet food security needs“.
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