Qatar’s Baladna and Malaysia’s FGV Holdings have pulled the plug on their plans for a dairy-farming business in the South East Asian country.

In a stock exchange filing, publicly-listed FGV said the move follows the “expiration of the period to satisfy the conditions precedent stipulated” in the agreement. 

The deal, signed in August 2022, involved FGV's wholly owned unit, FGV Integrated Farming Holdings, collaborating with Baladna to establish a joint venture company.  

FGV did not disclose the specific unmet conditions in its bourse filing.  

However, the company mentioned the termination will not materially impact FGV Integrated Farming.  

The proposed JV was also subject to approvals from FGV's shareholders and other relevant authorities. 

FGV Integrated Farming and Baladna were to hold a 40% stake each, with a third entity, Touch Group, to hold 20%. 

The project was planned on a 3,259ha site in the FGV Chuping Agro Valley, with an expected investment of up to RM4.5bn ($1.01bn) and planned to start in 2025. 

It aimed to produce 100 million litres of fresh milk annually within the first three years, potentially reaching 300 million litres within a decade.

At the time the agreement was signed, FGV group CEO Dato’ Mohd Nazrul Izam Mansor said the JV would be a “springboard” for the company to become “one of the world’s leading integrated and sustainable agribusinesses” and “strongly positions us in a growing milk and dairy industry”. 

FGV had initially announced its collaboration with FELCRA Berhad and Baladna in August 2021 to conduct a feasibility and technical study for the integrated dairy farm business.  

However, FELCRA withdrew its participation in April 2022, citing a need to focus on group-wide transformation initiatives.