Murray Goulburn, Australia’s largest dairy processor has delayed plans to raise $500 million in capital and partially corporatize its co-operative structure until the middle of 2015. The capital raising plan will introduce external investors through a unit trust which will hold no voting rights however the plan has some co-op farmers concerned that it will remove some of their control over the co-operative. Despite these concerns Murray Goulburn states that the raising will move forward. The decision to delay comes as Australian Dairy Farms floated 59 million shares in a $9.3 million capital raising earlier this month before its public listing on the Australian Stock Exchange on October 28th giving the new agricultural company a capitalization of $13.08 million. One of the largest institutional alternative asset managers in the world with $46.2 billion in assets under management, U.S-based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, was revealed to have bought an 8.4% stake in Australian Dairy Farms and Melbourne-based investor Paul Kehoe to have bought a 10% stake. Australian Dairy Farms currently owns and operates two dairy farms in Victoria and plans to purchase 14 additional farms to produce 50 million liters of milk per year within the next two years. A supply deal has already been finalized between the company and Fonterra.
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