Topic: How To Invest

Pat, may I have your opinion of the following U.S. food stock: Bunge, symbol BG on the NYSE? As always, your breadth of advice is terrific.

Article Excerpt

Bunge Ltd., $47.41, symbol BG on New York (Shares outstanding: 121.6 million; Market cap: $5.8 billion), is an agribusiness, fertilizer and food-products company. Bunge (pronounced BUN-gee) mainly operates in North and South America. It is the largest soybean processor in the Americas, and one of the largest soybean-product exporters (soybean products include vegetable oil and margarine). Bunge is also the world’s leading oilseed processor and seller of bottled vegetable oil. The company first sold shares to the public at $16, and began trading on New York in August 2001. Bunge has three main segments: i) Agribusiness, which accounts for 71% of Bunge’s total sales, buys grains and oilseeds from farmers and stores, blends and sells them to customers like animal feed and food manufacturers. Through its agribusiness segment, Bunge handles soybeans, rapeseed, sunflower seed, canola, wheat and corn. It also manages a network of 275 country elevators in North and South America and Europe, and processes oilseeds into meal, oil…