For Halcyon Agri, a gamble that has paid off

THE offer by Chinese state-owned conglomerate Sinochem International Corp for Halcyon Agri last week was no surprise, coming as it did after months of market rumours about such a deal.

But the path that the rubber processor had taken up to that point is worth studying. Was it a well-executed merger strategy that made it attractive to suitors? Or did Halcyon Agri simply get lucky?

When it first listed on the Catalist board in early 2013, Halcyon Agri was a negligible player in the rubber trade, with only two factories producing 67,000 tonnes of rubber in the 12 million-tonne market.

Today, it is set to become the world's largest rubber supply chain manager, after it attracted the interest of Chinese state-owned conglomerate Sino…