SHANGHAI-BASED Bright Foods (Group) Co said it will continue to seek international acquisition opportunities after the food conglomerate lost its latest bid for French yogurt maker Yoplait.

"We have no plans to change our strategy for overseas expansion," said Cao Shumin, president of Bright Foods yesterday. "We remain interested in mergers and acquisitions in our core business such as dairy, sugar and wines."

Cao's comment came after Bright Foods lost ground last week to General Mills Inc in buying a 50 percent stake in Yoplait, the world's second largest dairy company.

General Mills, the Yoplait US franchise, was in exclusive talks with Paris-based private equity firm PAI Partners to buy its stake in Yoplait. The remaining 50 percent would remain with Sodiaal, a French farmers' milk cooperative.

Though Bright Dairy entered the final round of bidding and reportedly offered the highest bid at about 1.7 billion euros (US$2.36 billion), the company was dumped amid fears it would not gain approval from Chinese authorities, media reports said.

Bright Foods has been on an overseas buying spree over the past three years as the company hopes to improve performance and become globally competitive.

Losing out on Yoplait was its fourth recent setback in trying to acquire an overseas company.

In July, Bright Foods failed to buy CSR Ltd's Australian sugar unit. Later, talks collapsed as Bright Foods attempted to buy both United Biscuits and GNC, a vitamin products retailer in the US.

Tang Zhiqing, analyst from Yiyan Business Consulting Co, said Bright Foods has a good strategy as overseas assets are cheaper in the wake of the global financial crisis.