Al Dahra has abandoned a plan to acquire farmland in Brazil after spending nearly two years evaluating potential deals, according to people with knowledge of the matter, marking a setback for expectations that Abu Dhabi capital would become a significant new investor in the country’s agricultural land.
The agribusiness company, controlled by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ, had considered several transactions as it sought large-scale farms in Brazil’s Cerrado. But the effort stalled as Al Dahra went through management turnover and its parent underwent a broader restructuring.
“Everyone wasted their time with them,” said one person who was involved in talks with the company.
Expectations had been high since senior Al Dahra executive Ahmed Saeed Al Suwaidi publicly expressed interest in Brazil following a visit by Mato Grosso Governor Mauro Mendes to Abu Dhabi nearly two years ago.
“We want to have operations in Brazil. It is a focus for us,” Al Suwaidi said at the time. “We work with farms of at least 10,000 hectares.”
That would translate into properties of at least 24,700 acres, putting Al Dahra squarely in the market for some of Brazil’s largest agricultural assets.
Among the opportunities Al Dahra considered was the acquisition of 15,000 hectares (37,050 acres) owned by Serra Bonita Sementes, a seed company in Goiás state. The property was ultimately sold to José Paulo Rocheto, the businessman who controls frozen-potato company Bem Brasil with his brothers.
Al Dahra also brought in experienced local advisers. Renato Cavalini, a former managing partner at Canadian investment firm Brookfield, worked as a consultant to the company. Brookfield once owned more than 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of land in Brazil.
Those connections failed to produce a transaction. As negotiations dragged on, some of Al Dahra’s Brazilian counterparts grew skeptical about the company’s intentions, particularly amid frequent management changes and a more unsettled geopolitical backdrop following the Iran war.
The uncertainty increased last week, when Al Dahra’s board announced several changes to senior management and named Osman Serageldin interim chief executive officer.
The moves are part of a broader corporate restructuring in Abu Dhabi. ADQ, which controls Al Dahra, was transferred under L’IMAD, a new sovereign investment vehicle led by Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed.
Al Dahra’s investment priorities following the restructuring remain unclear, leaving its once-ambitious Brazil expansion plan much further from realization, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private.
Founded in the 1990s, Al Dahra manages about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland across countries including Romania, Serbia, Egypt and Morocco. Its Romanian holdings include what the company says is Europe’s largest contiguous area of farmland.
In the Middle East, Al Dahra also operates rice-processing and dairy businesses and trades animal feed and other agricultural commodities.
This story was translated from the original Portuguese with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by The AgriBiz editorial staff.
