fbpx
Print this page
Wednesday, 24 September 2025 12:25

Drop the Anchor!

Written by  The Hound

OPINION: A few armchair experts have dumped on Fonterra’s $4.22b sale of its consumer business, but the more your old mate reads about it, the more it seems like a smart move.

Kiwis feel a surge of pride when they see the old Anchor brand when they’re overseas, but national pride isn’t exactly the last word in financial analysis.

A better yardstick is the opinion of the likes of Forsyth Barr senior analyst Matt Montgomerie and analyst Ben Crozier, who refer to the assets sold as “the poor-performing Mainland Group”.

They view Fonterra as a “much higher-quality business” without it. The Consumer business has long been a problem area for Fonterra and its return on capital is typically abysmal compared with the co-op’s Foodservice and Ingredients arms.

Fonterra’s core strength is clearly milk processing—not branded consumer products.


 Read More:


More like this

Smith V Fonterra

OPINION: To a chorus of crying greenies, and not a minute too soon, the Government has moved to put the courts back in their place through proposed amendments to the Climate Change Response Act 2002, intending to limit climate litigation claims such as Smith v Fonterra, in the interests of providing greater certainty for vital industry.

Featured

National

Machinery & Products

Look Beyond Features

Technology adoption on New Zealand dairy farms has accelerated rapidly over the past decade.