Agricore United sells Farm Bus. Comm. to Glacier Ventures Int. Corp.

Agricultural sector product and service provider Agricore United (Winnipeg, MB) has completed the sale of its Farm Business Communications (FBC) unit to Glacier Ventures International Corp. (GVIC; Vancouver, BC) for C$14.4 million in cash and the assumption of C$l.6 million in liabilities, primarily prepaid subscriptions. GVIC paid $12.2 million at closing and will pay the remaining $2.2 million in equal installments over three years.

FBC produces a number of farm business periodicals, including Country Guide (9x; 50,000), Canola Guide (6x; 25,000), Grainews (17x; 48,000), Manitoba Co-operator (51x; 13,000) and flagship Canadian Cattlemen (11x; 29,000) magazines. The company also produces related farm business, technical, producion and instructional materials in variety of formats.

GVIC president/ceo Jonathan Kennedy said "our goal is to continue to provide the quality and depth of essential information the FBC publications deliver to farmers and ranchers, and provide the highest level of service to the advertisers who seek to reach them."

GVIC is an information communications company that seeks to expand through both organic growth and acquisitions. Current divisions include Specialty Publishers, a unit that produces reference and interpretive regulatory and compliance materials, and Western Producer Publications, a unit acquired by GVIC in early 2002 that publishes such magazine titles as Western Producer, Western Canola Producer and Farm Computer Guide.