What Would Synlait Be Worth to Fonterra or a2 Milk?
Speculation of a possible joint move by Fonterra and a2 Milk to buy Synlait raises a much bigger strategic question, says agribusiness expert Dr Nic Lees.
The company has 10-year partnership with Maersk Shipping.
Kotahi chief executive David Ross says the agreement comes with a commitment to each other "to ensure capacity is there for exporters on our platform".
"We realised last year was tough with the constant slippage, so the plan going into this year was to do something different," he says.
"This is to ensure we would get the schedule integrity and the capacity. We need to not put the stress on the supply chain that we've seen in the previous 12 months."
Ross says Maersk has committed to increase capacity to New Zealand this year.
He says while the port congestion doesn't go away, the new schedule will be able to handle that congestion and be on time. He adds that over the last few months, the schedule integrity of key Maersk services in NZ is back to over 80%.
"That just changes everything. The boxes [containers] are coming in when you need them, you are booking the vessels you want and whole flow starts to come back."
