From WATTAgNet:

SHV Holdings has sweetened its offer for Dutch animal feed supplier Nutreco to EUR2.98 billion (US$3.71 billion).

The revised bid comes after a counteroffer from Cargill, which had expressed interest in acquiring Nutreco’s fish feed operations and selling its animal nutrition business to Permira, a European private equity firm.

Nutreco rejected Cargill’s offer, saying its plan is “fundamentally inconsistent with Nutreco’s long-term growth strategy for the business as a whole.”

“Nutreco concluded that Cargill’s expression of competing interest is not in the interest of Nutreco’s stakeholders,” Nutreco said in a news release.

SHV’s new offer would have it paying EUR44.50 per share in cash for outstanding shares of Nutreco. This is an increase of 11.25 percent over its original offer of EUR40 per share.

As part of Cargill’s counteroffer, it was willing to pay at least EUR43.20 in cash per share.

The SHV deal is subject to regulatory approval and will be contingent on shareholders agreeing to sell 95 percent of Nutreco’s outstanding shares to SHV. SHV plans to delist Nutreco’s shares after the merger.

Nutreco posted revenue of approximately EUR5.2 billion in 2013. It employs 10,000 people in 30 countries.

SHV, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, employs 47,000 people in 50 countries.