Verde Agritech PLC (TSE:NPK) (OTCQB:AMHPF) announced Tuesday that it is tapping finance professional Felipe Buscacio Paolucci as the fertilizer group’s new chief financial officer.
Paolucci is an executive with over 15 years of finance experience in multinational companies such as Arysta, consumer goods giant Unilever plc (LON:ULVR) and Deloitte, one of the "Big Four" accounting organizations in the world.
Paolucci has nine years of experience in the agricultural business working for Arysta, the world’s fifth-largest crop protection and agrochemical company with five billion in annual sales. As an executive at Arysta, he focused on finance, logistics, procurement and planning across Brazil and Latin America.
READ: Verde Agritech eyeing bigger sales and profitability as it declares commercial production at Brazil plant
Paolucci will be based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and will replace Tim Slater, who has acted as the company’s interim CFO for the past few years based out of London.
“After carefully analyzing multiple companies, my choice for Verde comes down to one word: ‘future.’ The company has a clear and solid strategy for future growth buttressed by Brazil’s strong agricultural sector and with an upside potential in international markets,” said Paolucci. “I am eager to tackle the challenges that will make Verde a market leader.”
Paolucci holds an MBA from Insper and a BA in management and finance from the Fumec University in Brazil.
Verde AgriTech CEO Cristiano Veloso noted that Paolucci will be working close to the company’s growing team in Brazil, overseeing trade finance and capital expenditure.
“Mr Paolucci has significant experience in the agricultural market in Brazil and is choosing Verde because he believes in the massive market opportunity we are seizing upon, so much so that he is investing over six figures in the company’s ongoing private placement,” said Veloso.
The Brazil-focused agricultural fertilizer company arranged a non-brokered private placement to raise as much as C$1 million. The net proceeds from the placement will be used for general working capital purposes, according to the Belo Horizonte, Brazil-based company.
Verde AgriTech promotes sustainable agriculture through the development of its Cerrado Verde potassium project in western Minas Gerais in the heart of Brazil’s Cerrado agricultural heartland.
Sales update
Verde said it was looking at increasing sales with commercial production at its first processing plant in Brazil. For 2019, Verde plans to sell 200,000 tonnes of products.
Orders for the 2019 season opened in late 2018 with 14,170 tonnes in orders pouring in with down payments, said the company. Mining and production will resume after the end of the rainy season in mid-March.
The company said it had to “waive” more than 17,000 tonnes of orders in 2018 because the mine and processing plant were closed due to an early start to the rainy season.
Contact Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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