Halcyon finds bounce in the old rubber trade

THERE'S a new force in the rubber sector. With prized assets from industry stalwart, Lee Rubber, Halcyon Agri Corporation's chairman Robert Meyer wants to take on a clubby business that has yet to be reinvented in the way that other forms of commodity productions have. Halcyon's ambitions, backed mainly by debt-loaded acquisitions, will need traction from Mr Meyer's expectation that the rubber market will return to normalcy in three to six months' time.

Rubber is currently trading at depressed prices not seen in several years.

The rubber market's abnormal state has already hit the bottom line of Halcyon, a company producing rubber for tyre makers.

Yet, for Mr Meyer, the dysfunctional market has been a stroke of good fortune, unearthing acquisition opportunities for a company that was, in its previous self, a private company that invested and …