Cargill Cotton’s roots in cotton merchandising trace back to 1818, when John and Eustace Ralli began trading cotton and other commodities in London. Over the next thirty years, the brothers' business interests began to focus predominantly on cotton from the East Indies. In 1851, Ralli Brothers was incorporated with offices in the United Kingdom, Calcutta and Bombay. In 1865, another cotton trading company, Smith, Coney and Barrat, was founded and soon became very successful. By the middle of the twentieth century, the firms had grown to become two of the United Kingdom's leading cotton merchants and in 1962 the two companies agreed to merge, forming Ralli Brothers and Coney. Shortly after the formation of Smith, Coney and Barrat, Adolphe and Morris Hohenberg formed their partnership in the United States to trade cotton and dry goods in 1879. Over the next hundred years, Hohenberg Brothers Cotton Company and Ralli Brothers and Coney, grew to become two of the largest and most successful in the United Sates and the world. At the time Cargill acquired Hohenberg Bros. Company in 1976, Ralli Bros. and Coney and Hohenberg each had established themselves as global leaders in the industry. In 1981 Ralli Brothers and Coney was sold to Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Ralli Brothers and Coney's strengths were in the trading of cotton from the Indian sub-continent and Africa, which complimented the fields of expertise, which Cargill Inc. already possessed through their Memphis, Tennessee, USA based cotton-trading company, Hohenberg Brothers Inc. From these two small family ventures evolved one of the largest and most widely respected cotton merchandising concerns in the history of the world. Combining the strengths of these two organizations, Cargill was immediately recognized as one of the most mature, respected, and experienced companies in the world of cotton merchandising. In 2002, after over 20 years of operating under both the Hohenberg and Ralli names, the name of the entire cotton operation was changed to Cargill Cotton. Thus the combination of strengths became complete as the cotton business unit assumed the name of its 100 billion-dollar parent company. Cargill Incorporated, coincidentally, was established in 1865, the same year Smith, Coney and Barrat cotton merchants began business. After 20 successful years trading under the Cargill umbrella, Ralli and Hohenberg updated their identity in July 2002 by changing their names to Cargill Cotton UK and Cargill Cotton USA. Cargill Cotton UK and Cargill Cotton USA have jointly built up a truly global cotton product line with representation through Cargill's world-wide agri-business infrastructure in more than 59 countries. Cargill Cotton UK and Cargill Cotton USA make up Cargill Inc.'s cotton product division. Cargill Cotton USA sources cotton from the Western Hemisphere, predominantly the USA, with Cargill Cotton UK originating supplies from the rest of the world. Today, Cargill Cotton is one of the top three cotton merchants in the world. Cargill Cotton UK is located in Liverpool, the traditional home of cotton trading. We have 40 employees working from our head office involved in all aspects of trading, logistics, finance and information technology. Cargill Cotton UK has branch offices in Tashkent, Johannesburg, Harare and Brisbane that specialize in cotton procurement. Although cotton is grown in over 100 countries, there are only a handful of major exporting countries and Cargill Cotton is prominent in many of these countries. Cargill Cotton UK's key supply areas are Central Asia, West Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, Syria, the Indian sub-continent, Brazil and China. Historically, cotton trading in the less developed world has been characterized by merchants building on their close relationships with foreign selling agencies to secure large contracts. As developing countries are becoming more sophisticated and international bodies like the IMF press for greater privatization there has been a fragmentation of the cotton supply chain. The role of the trader has had to adapt and Cargill Cotton now offers total supply chain support including finance, logistics, risk management and stringent quality control. Although Cargill Cotton's procurement expertise is directed towards a few strategic areas, we ship cotton to all four corners of the globe. We currently service in excess of 400 cotton buyers in over 50 different countries around the world. Because of the scope of our operations, our trading and administration teams in Liverpool and Memphis are focused on employing the best business practices, delivering unsurpassed contract performance and developing the most suitable customer solutions within the international arena. In the past decade many traditional cotton traders have taken a step back up the supply chain to become involved in ginning, the process of removing cotton lint from the seed. Cargill Cotton was one of the first cotton traders to invest in the ginning to augment our trading activities and strengthen our sourcing of quality cottons from Africa. Cargill Cotton now has cotton gins in five countries in Southern Africa including Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We are very proud of the success and growth that we have shared with our suppliers and buyers over the last 150 years. We are equally pleased to be able to look back through our history in the knowledge that the company's tradition has always been one of absolute integrity. In today's diverse and multi-cultural world we firmly believe that our unparalleled reputation is our greatest asset.