On December 17, 2001, United Grain Growers Limited ("UGG"), carrying on business as Agricore United, which is one of Canada's leading agribusinesses, completed its treasury and secondary offering of 13 million limited voting common shares at a price of $8.00 per share. The treasury offering consisted of approximately 6.7 million shares for total gross proceeds to Agricore United of approximately $53.7-million, while the secondary offering of approximately 6.3 million shares for total gross proceeds of approximately $50.7-million related to the assisted sales program established by the company. This program was established to assist the former shareholders and equity members of Agricore Cooperative Ltd. ("Agricore") to sell in an orderly manner limited voting common shares they received in connection with the recent merger transaction involving UGG and Agricore. The offering was underwritten by a syndicate of underwriters led by Scotia Capital Inc. and National Bank Financial Inc., and included CIBC World Markets Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc., HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc., Pollitt & Co. Inc. and Wellington West Capital Inc.

Agricore United intends to use the net proceeds from the treasury offering to reduce outstanding indebtedness. Proceeds from the secondary offering will be paid to the former shareholders and equity members of Agricore who participated in the assisted sales program.

Fasken Martineau acted as counsel to the underwriters, with a team comprised of Joel Binder (securities), Sean Morley (corporate) and Michael Pasternack (corporate).