In a pre-IPO research tome, St Helen’s Capital shines the investment spotlight on corporate client Soya Mills, a long-established concern looking to raise up to €50 million (£39.6m) through a placing and IPO on AIM in July.

Analyst David Johnson says Soya will enable investors to ‘gain exposure to the agricommodities sector’ by buying into an ambitious concern that aims to become ‘the leading trading and distribution hub of grains and oil-seed products in South East Europe’.

Soya, he says, is a ‘profitable acquirer, transporter and processor of oil-seed products, and a distributor and trader of grains in Greece, the Balkans and the Middle East.’

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Moreover, Soya, the largest soybean protein and feed-oil producer in Greece and the owner of the country’s largest private port, has successfully expanded ‘up and down the value chain’ in order to ‘maximise margin capture’, while diversifying into related markets such as shipping and bio-diesel production in order to leverage its expertise and fixed cost base.

Funds raised, notes Johnson, will fund the expansion of Soya’s existing operations as well as a new shipping joint venture with fleet-owning giant Tsakos. Fast growing and ‘profitable for the past ten years’, Johnson sees Soya's top line growing from €340 million to €382 million between December 2008 and 2009, with PBT increasing from €13.6 million to €24 million.