FERRUZZI NEGOTIATING EUROPEAN ACQUISITION
Italy's <Gruppo Ferruzzi> is in the
advanced stages of negotiations that could result in an
acquisition worth "some hundreds of billions of lire" in the
European agro-industrial sector, a company spokesman told
Reuters.
    The spokesman declined to identify the other party or
parties involved in talks, or whether a complete takeover was
under discussion, but said an Italian newspaper report that
Ferruzzi was studying the possibility of advancing an offer for
13 European cereal processing plants owned by the U.S. Group
CPC International Inc <CPC.N> was incorrect.
    The spokesman said that possibility had been evaluated by
Ferruzzi but that the company's attention at the moment was
"decisively in another direction."
    The spokesman, responding to a report in the Italian
economic daily Il Sole-24 Ore that Ferruzzi was considering a
possible bid for the CPC plants, told Reuters his company hoped
to conclude the talks currently underway in a couple of months.
    The spokesman said that since the U.K. Government last
month blocked Ferruzzi's bid to acquire <British Sugar Plc>,
the company had been looking at other investment opportunities.
 REUTER
