CANTAN Investments was established in August of 2006 (after some months of planning) to acquire and develop Agri-processing business assets with significant growth potential in northern Tanzania. Its head office is in Montreal, Canada at 10765 Cote de Liesse Boulevard, Dorval, Quebec, H9P 2R9. The directors are Geoffrey Chambers, (President) Eric Maldoff, and Coleman Ngalo.

CANTAN was formed in response to a perceived climate of business opportunity in northern Tanzania and a targeted capital market in Canada which has a mission to place funds in African LDCs but has had difficulty in sourcing good quality investment opportunities. CANTAN’s vocation is to identify, develop and fund viable Agri-processing projects.

 

In its first year CANTAN negotiated at length to acquire certain Agri-processing assets in Arusha which it was hoped would form a core operation from which it could build its business. The transaction has not come together as anticipated and CANTAN has begun work on building its business without acquiring a strategic initiating asset.

One potential avenue of finance would be through the Dar-es-salaam Stock Exchange www.darstockexchange.com via a special purpose vehicle Tanhort Agro Processing Group.

A pack house and vegetable export operation is being developed and will be shipping produce to Europe by mid 2008. The product will be sourced from small growers through MIM (Market Intermediary Management) a non profit which formerly sold its output through GEL (Gomba Estates Limited).

CANTAN expects to build on this operation towards an integrated and diversified Agri-export business providing access to international markets for much of the agricultural output of northern Tanzania.

CANTAN’s target scale is $1M to $3M per project and it hopes to assemble a portfolio of five to ten compatible operations over an investment horizon of three to five years. Its principle capital sources include are; equity contributed by the Principals; a pool of Canadian Government development funds which have been matched by Canadian private sector money with a mandate to invest in viable business projects LDCs in the next eighteen months; a directly controlled Canadian Government fund with a similar mandate and a church run fund with an overlapping mission (and a longer time horizon) which has received matching public sector money.

There is significant demand for the kind of financially viable projects with positive social and economic dimensions which CANTAN is planning to source and develop.