GUILIN, CHINA — Guilin Layn Natural Ingredients Corp, Ltd., the Chinese division of Layn Natural Ingredients, on Dec. 1 announced it has acquired a majority stake in Chengdu Wagott Bio-tech Co., Ltd. (Wagott), China’s largest exporter of green tea extract.

The agreement for Layn to acquire a 51% of Wagott through equity was finalized Oct. 13. Layn said the purpose of the agreement was “to integrate and leverage the industry's leading resources, combining intellectual property and advantages in talent, management, products, processes, and industry relationships to deliver increasing compelling value to customers.”

The acquisition will expand Layn Natural Ingredients’ portfolio of botanical extracts, which it supplies to several industries including animal nutrition and pet health.

“It is exciting to combine our well-developed processes and technology to expand opportunities and bring increased value to the marketplace, particularly in bringing tea extracts, including natural polyphenols and L-theanine to market,” said Feng Gu, general manager of Wagott. “Utilizing Layn’s formulation and application strengths and proprietary platforms designed to deliver solutions tailored to specific applications and market needs, we anticipate significant product innovation and the introduction of new lines such as white tea and pu’erh tea extracts and organic certified tea extracts.”

Gu will stay on as Wagott’s general manager and maintain its operations independently following the acquisition.

The two companies’ product lines complement each other as high-quality natural ingredient solutions. Layn reported it will continue to expand as a global leader in botanical extracts, polyphenols and theanine ingredients.

“Layn’s state-of-the-art facility is optimized for botanical extraction and the production of sweeteners, fruit-based antioxidants and herb-based functional ingredients,” said Frank Xie, executive vice president at Layn Corp. “We continuously strive to advance our botanical science and R&D efforts, and unifying this with Wagott’s capacity and its leading, complementary ingredient portfolio puts us in a unique position of global leadership in innovation, production, yield, and cost – all focused on providing ultimate value to our customers.”

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