"Our" business?
OPINION: One particular bone the Hound has been gnawing on for years now is how the chattering classes want it both ways when it comes to the success of NZ's dairy industry.
Fonterra has appointed a board sub-committee to salvage its disastrous investment in Chinese infant formula trader Beingmate.
The co-op says a board working group – that includes independent directors Simon Israel and Clinton Dines - is “providing guidance and oversight” as the senior management team work to recover the investment.
Both Israel and Dines have significant China experience and expertise.
Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings says the co-op is “working hard in the background” on the Beingmate investment.
Spierings acknowledged that revising the Beingmate investment is unacceptable to shareholders and unitholders. “The recovery of the value of this investment is the number one immediate priority for me and the senior management team.
“To be blunt, the investment in Beingmate has not gone the way we expected and there are things we would do differently knowing what we know now. We are very focused on doing all we can to get things where they need to be.”
As an 18.8% shareholder, Fonterra doesn’t have direct control over the Beingmate, which was the number one infant formula in China until two years ago.
But the co-op is working with Beingmate founder and majority shareholder Xie Hong to “influence its direction and an urgent business transformation”.
“We see there are a number of opportunities to reverse the current performance, unlock the distribution network and meet customers’ preferences for e-commerce,” says Spierings.
“While this seems like a slow process and we’re not allowed to share all of the information about Beingmate’s business, we are working hard in the background to get ourselves in a position where there is a tangible action plan for transforming Beingmate that we can share more widely and monitor progress,” says Spierings.
Following a recent overweight incursion that saw a Mid-Canterbury contractor cop a $12,150 fine, the rural contracting industry is calling time on what they consider to be outdated and unworkable regulations regarding weight and dimensions that they say are impeding their businesses.
Trade Minister Todd McClay says his officials plan to meet their US counterparts every month from now on to better understand how the 15% tariff issue there will play out, and try and get some certainty there for our exporters about the future.
A landmark New Zealand trial has confirmed what many farmers have long suspected - that strategic spring nitrogen use not only boosts pasture growth but delivers measurable gains in lamb growth and ewe condition.
It was recently announced that former MP and Southland farmer Eric Roy has stepped down of New Zealand Pork after seven years. Leo Argent talks with Eric about his time at the organisation and what the future may hold.
It's critical that the horticulture sector works together as part of a goal to double the sector’s exports by 2035.
RaboResearch, the research arm of specialist agriculture industry banker Rabobank, sees positives for the Alliance Group in its proposed majority-stake sale to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
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