FERRUZZI NEGOTIATING EUROPEAN ACQUISITION Italy's <Gruppo Ferruzzi> is in the advanced stages of negotiations that could result in an acquisition worth "some hundreds of billions of lire" in the European agro-industrial sector, a company spokesman told Reuters. The spokesman declined to identify the other party or parties involved in talks, or whether a complete takeover was under discussion, but said an Italian newspaper report that Ferruzzi was studying the possibility of advancing an offer for 13 European cereal processing plants owned by the U.S. Group CPC International Inc <CPC.N> was incorrect. The spokesman said that possibility had been evaluated by Ferruzzi but that the company's attention at the moment was "decisively in another direction." The spokesman, responding to a report in the Italian economic daily Il Sole-24 Ore that Ferruzzi was considering a possible bid for the CPC plants, told Reuters his company hoped to conclude the talks currently underway in a couple of months. The spokesman said that since the U.K. Government last month blocked Ferruzzi's bid to acquire <British Sugar Plc>, the company had been looking at other investment opportunities.