Elders mum on PGW
Australian rural services company Elders has downplayed media speculation it is raising funds for a buyout of New Zealand’s largest agricultural services company PGG Wrightson (PGW).
Longtime Elders New Zealand managing director Stu Chapman will later this month leave the business he started.
Following the Carr Group’s acquisition last August of Elders New Zealand – recently rebranded as Carrfields – Chapman, once a shareholder in the Elders agribusiness, agreed to continue in the MD role during the sale and management handover.
He will finish at Elders on August 14 but remain a director of Elders Primary Wool, comprising NZ Yarn, Wool Exports NZ and Wool Marketing Enterprises (Just Shorn). He will also remain a director of Elders International NZ Live Export, a joint venture with Elders Australia.
Chapman has spent 21 years with Elders NZ, growing the business into a market leader particularly in livestock and wool.
Rural trader PGG Wrightson has revised its operating earnings guidance, saying trading conditions have deteriorated since the last market update in February.
It's been a bumper season for maize and other supplements in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
Leading farmers from around New Zealand connected to share environmental stories and inspiration and build relationships at the Dairy Environment Leaders (DEL) national forum in Wellington last month.
AgriZeroNZ, a joint venture fast-tracking emissions reduction tools for farmers, is pouring $5 million in a biotech company to develop a low emissions farm pasture with increased productivity gains.
Fonterra is teaming up with wealth app provider Sharesies to make it easier for its farmer shareholders to trade co-op shares among themselves.
Te Awamutu dairy farmers Doug, Penny, Josh and Bayley Storey have planted more than 25,000 native trees on the family farm, adding to a generations-old native forest.