Fonterra, Sharesies join to make share trading easier
Fonterra is teaming up with wealth app provider Sharesies to make it easier for its farmer shareholders to trade co-op shares among themselves.
Outgoing Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings says the normal tenure of a global chief executive is between five and seven years.
Spierings, who will complete seven years at Fonterra in September, says he will be working towards “a high quality handover”.
Discussing his exit from Fonterra was “an awkward moment that doesn’t happen too often in life”.
But he says in big companies it was very normal to look at succession plans.
“When I came I said I see really Fonterra as the envy of the dairy world; actually that’s what it is.
“We are the highest paying co-op in terms of cash payout in the world and I’m extremely proud of it.”
Spierings admits not everything has gone according to plan over the last seven years.
The controversial Beingmate investment in China remains an issue for the co-op.
Spierings says choosing Beingmate was the right decision.
He noted that when Fonterra chose Beingmate in 2014, it was the leading local infant nutrition brand in China; founder and majority shareholder Xie Hong had been named entrepreneur of the year.
“Yes, that was the right decision but we have certainly learnt lessons since then.
“China evolves very quickly; to have 18.8% stake in a publicly listed company in China with regulations increasing pretty quickly is not easy, to say it mildly.”
He says Beingmate and its founder were also slow to embrace e-commerce.
But he says Fonterra is not looking for a new partner in the infant formula sector in China.
A vet is calling for all animals to be vaccinated against a new strain of leptospirosis (lepto) discovered on New Zealand dairy farms in recent years.
Two major red meat sector projects are getting up to a combined $1.7 million in funding from the New Zealand Meat Board (NZMB).
Angus Barr and Tara Dwyer of The Wandle, Lone Star Farms in Strath Taieri have been named the Regional Supreme Winners at the Otago Ballance Farm Environment Awards in Dunedin.
OPINION: The distress that the politicians and bureaucrats are causing to the people of Wairoa and the wider Tairāwhiti is unforgivable.
Dairy
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.