104 The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 $1.50 (Incl. GST)

INSIDE
DOWLER HEMPHILL FREE NEW AG
LIVESTOCK
Restockers battle
WOOL
Retailers snub
MARKETS
Prices ease after bumper
DAIRY
Positive thoughts lead
CROPS
Proposed grain peak
HORTICULTURE
Swan Hill stonefruit grower
RANGE GROUP
FIASCO
to buy sheep. Australian wool. sales at Warrnambool. to industry award wins. groups compared. to lead VFF group.
왘Page 103 왘Page 101 왘Page 95 왘Page 92 왘Page 87 왘Page 86
PAGE 3 PAGE 7

Fertility focus urged By BRIAN CLANCY
THE high turn-off of ewes is
jeopardising the future of the
prime lamb industry.
So says farm consultant and
chairman of the Bestwool
Bestlamb group Jason Trompf.
Mr Trompf said the big risk for
the prime lamb sector was a
shortage of lambs to meet demand.
He said higher demand would
result in higher prices and buying
resistance.
He said a sustainable prime lamb
industry depended upon a lift in
flock fertility and higher lamb
marking percentages.
Mr Trompf said the past 20 years
had seen the national sheep flock
plummet from 170 million to 72
million, with the number of ewes
falling from 70 million to 40
‘‘I have always been passionate
about wool, but I find it more
efficient to reduce wool cuts to
boost fertility’’ he said.
Mr Toland said he was achieving
this goal by selecting a plainer-
bodied sheep, particularly a lamb
with a wrinkle score of three or
less.
Lambpro principal Tom Bull, of
Holbrook, in southern NSW, was
taking wool right out of his pro-
ductivity equation.
Mr Bull, who is a breeder of Poll
Dorset and Primeline maternal
rams, said woolly sheep only added
to the costs.
Nevertheless, Mr Bull said he
preferred to stick with his current
breeding base for the sake of skin
values rather than go with a breed
that shed wool, such as a Dorper.
Share price savaged
He said skin values could gener-

On the
million and increased lamb slaugh- ate up to $25 a ewe after allowing
terings. for twinning.
He said there were big opportun- But while Mr Bull was pushing
ities to boost lamb survival and the cause of the specialist prime
marking rates with the national lamb producer the self-replacing
average marking rate in prime lamb Merino flock had several vocal CEO
CE
CEO
flocks rising just 1 per cent in the supporters.
past two decades. Hamilton consultant Peter Malcolm
M a lc
Ma l c ol
olm
Speaking at last week’s Schroder said some of his best Jackman
Jaa ck
c k ma
mann

Bestwool Bestlamb conference in
Bendigo Mr Trompf advocated an
increase in twinning rates, particu-
larly for Merino ewes.
Toland Poll Merino stud princi-
pal Phil Toland, who runs a flock of
2000 Merino ewes at Violet Town,
said he was prepared to sacrifice a
10 per cent cut in fleece weights for
a 10 per cent lift in fertility.
A B C
brink
clients running self-replacing Mer-
ino flocks with 40 per cent dry
sheep were generating wool and
surplus sheep income to produce a
5-10 per cent return on their assets.
38¢
yyesterday
It was a point endorsed by Mr
Trompf.
He said benchmarking had By ANDREW MOLE
yesterday, yet the body blows keep Only a weekend of intense nego-
shown that a crossbred flock need-
coming. tiation avoided the withdrawal of its
ed to achieve a lambing marking ELDERS — the most iconic delcredere underwriting, which had

Mr Toland said that, in his farm
Winners are grinners: you can’t wipe the smile off the faces of Werner, Josy and Markus Lang. The dairy farmers, from business, wool gave him a net
Tatura in northern Victoria, triumphed in last week’s Dairy Business of the Year awards, which recognise top operators return of $30 a head while surplus
in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and southern NSW. Report, Page 92.Picture: YURI KOUZMIN sheep sales were generating $90 per
head.
앫
percentage of 140-150 per cent to IOOF, one of its two major share-
equal the returns of a Merino flock
name in Australian agri- holders, announced it was selling reached the point where Queensland
with 90 per cent lamb marking. business — is again fighting down, leaving QBE, with just over 8 Delcredere Agents Association mem-
for its survival. per cent, as Elders’ last institutional bers had been warned they may have
쐌 Put customers first, Page 102 heavyweight investor. to stop selling to Elders or North
After last week announcing its

ninth profit downgrade in two years, Law firm Slater & Gordon is in- Australian Cattle Company, a wholly
owned subsidiary of the company.
앫

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+
4 The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010
FIRST
4
WKT 30-JUN-2010 PAGE
Ready to go: David Robertson’s design for an all-terrain-vehicle roll-over protection system is yet to be adopted by manufacturers.
C M Y K
ATV safety row hots up
By PAUL SELLARS
F B 1 2 3
ALL-terrain-vehicle manufac-
turers have denied claims they
have their ‘‘heads in the sand’’
over roll-over protection.
The co-inventor of an ATV
safety structure recently accused
manufacturers of ignoring evi-
dence that roll-over protection
systems were effective.
QB Industries managing di-
rector David Robertson said his
Quadbar invention was helping
to prevent ATV-related injuries
Elders on the brink as profit slumps
쐌 From Page 1
The warning was on the back
of losing about 250,000 tonnes
of market share in the WA ferti-
liser market and the walkout of
almost the whole dairy division
in 2008.
When former Elders’ Victor-
ia, Riverina and Tasmania man-
ager David Pemberton and his
livestock manager, Scott Lord,
also walked and set up their own
consultancy in 2008, about 50
key staff followed, along with
their clients.
Stock analysts have
downgraded their ratings to
holds and speculative buys.
It is a shockwave that has
spread through the industry,
with stocks such as AWB —
owner of Landmark, Elders’
major competitor — and chemi-
cal supplier Nufarm, also down.
The assault of generic
glyphosate products on the tra-
ditionally lucrative cropping
market, the explosion of
smaller, low-overhead agencies,
a flat rural real estate market,
low cattle prices and a strong
Australian dollar have all con-
verged to batter the big players.
But Elders chief executive
+ Malcolm Jackman, the man who
engineered last year’s $550 mil-
and was now being sold around
the world.
Mr Robertson pointed to a
trial conducted by the Univer-
sity of Southern Queensland last
year to back up his claims.
The trial found the Quadbar
was ‘‘effective in reducing the
likelihood of rider injury in
ATV sideways roll-over and
back flip’’.
‘‘(It) should be considered an
essential safety feature of ATVs
in the workplace and rec-
reational environment,’’ the
lion capital raising to save the
company from collapse, is ada-
mant it is on the road to recovery.
It is a road that has already
seen him shed the company’s
underwriting and insurance
agency business and cut its
shareholding in Rural Bank
from 50 per cent to 40 per cent,
and will now cost about 250
jobs to save $45 million.
‘‘Yes, 20 per cent of our share
registry moved in one day last
week, but 20 per cent of our
share registry was also pur-
chased in one day last week,’’
Mr Jackman said.
‘‘There are fundamental signs
that we are headed in the right
direction. Wool and livestock
are both good. We are expecting
rural real estate to get a kick in
the spring and, like everyone in
agribusiness, we are making ad-
justments to manage the chang-
ing buying patterns of farmers,
study found.
Mr Robertson said ATV
manufacturers were ‘‘paranoid
that if someone shows roll-over
protection can work, it may
come back to bite them . . . be-
cause they haven’t been fitting
them in the past’’.
‘‘They have their heads in the
sand over the issue and they are
not willing to be open to new
concepts,’’ he said.
However, Federal Chamber
of Automotive Industries motor-
cycle manager Rhys Griffiths
Slow decline
of a pastoral
icon Pages 24-25
particularly in fertiliser and
agchem.
‘‘The fertiliser market has
been an incredible rollercoaster
ride, with amazing spikes and
then a real collapse, but it is
returning to more historical
levels now.’’
Incredibly, this is not the
closest the company has come to
disappearing.
Its nearest brush with death
occurred when the board of Fos-
ter’s, which finished up owning
Elders in the spectacular fallout
of the Elliot era, seemed set on
breaking up what was a non-
core business and selling it off.
However, under then-chief
executive Ted Kunkel, Foster’s
decided to give Elders a lifeline
and launched a public float,
which finished oversubscribed,
and the pastoral house was back.
Mr Jackman has been with
Elders for less than two years.
said the chamber had com-
missioned its own research into
the Quadbar and various other
ROPS.
‘‘All the research we have
done at this stage indicates there
are no advantages, and in fact
there can be considerable disad-
vantage, by fitting any device to
a current design ATV,’’ Mr
Griffiths said.
‘‘Anyone who thinks manu-
facturers haven’t already done
an enormous amount of work
into this are kidding them-
Slim pickings: share analysts have downgraded Elders shares to holds and speculative buys.
When he arrived, he inherited
what could be described as a
corporate wreckage from former
CEO Les Wozniczka, who in
partnership with chairman
Stephen Gerlach had taken
Elders in a dozen directions.
The company was buying
into markets such as salmon
farming, telecommunications
and forestry, none of them core
selves.’’
Mr Griffiths added there had
been a ‘‘long-running’’ battle
between QB Industries and the
manufacturers.
A series of ATV-related
deaths in Victoria and Tasmania
was the focus of a long-running
coronial inquiry between 2002
and last year.
The inquiry ended with the
Coroner telling manufacturers
to never again market or de-
scribe them as all-terrain ve-
hicles.
businesses, and none of them
successful.
When asked last week
whether he felt Mr Gerlach, who
has been a constant through all
Elders recent troubles, should
fall on his sword, Mr Jackman
said the company’s chairman
had already flagged he was leav-
ing, as soon as a replacement
was found.
+
weeklytimesnow.com.au
We’ll
employ
more
ambos
By ANDREW MOLE
REGIONAL Victoria has
been promised more than
200 new ambulance
p aram ed ics — if th e
Coalition wins the next
election.
According to Coalition
leader Ted Baillieu they
will be part of a total of
340 new paramedics and
patient transport officers
— which would be the
largest single increase in
ambulance staff.
He said the Coalition
would work with Ambu-
lance Victoria, communi-
ties and paramedics to al-
locate the new officers to
areas of the state with the
greatest clinical need.
They include:
쐌 Barwon South West: 44
paramedics and six patient
transport officers.
쐌 Grampians: 43
paramedics and six patient
transport officers.
쐌 L o d d o n M allee: 4 3
paramedics and six patient
transport officers.
쐌 Hume: 40 paramedics
and six patient transport
officers.
쐌 Gippsland: 40
paramedics and six patient
transport officers.
The Coalition also
pledged to recruit an ad-
ditional 30 patient trans-
port officers across re-
gional Victoria.
Last month a man who
lived less than one block
from the Maryborough
ambulance station died
after waiting more than 38
minutes for an ambulance.
In the same month a
five-year-old Gippsland
boy died after waiting more
than an hour for a specialist
MICA response unit.
When The Weekly Times
suggested no one wanted the
job, Mr Jackman said he pre-
ferred to say: ‘‘We have not yet
made an appointment’’.
‘‘We are headed in the right
direction, we will get the busi-
ness back to basics and we will
deliver — for our shareholders,
our customers and our staff,’’
Mr Jackman added. +

+
24 The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010
䊳 䊳 ELDERS CRISIS
Slow decline of
FIRST
24
WKT 30-JUN-2010 PAGE
C M Y K
True blue: a common rural sight, the Elders livestock selling crew in action.
Market could cope without them
F B 1 2 3
Richard Beggs
Nareeb Nareeb stud Merino and
Dohnes
Glenthompson
RICHARD Beggs sees Elders rural
services division as having a key role
to play in the future of agricultural
Australia, but has doubts it will be
able to go the distance.
‘‘I would be pretty sure the rural
business is good and profitable, it is
just the other legs under the table
letting them down,’’ he said.
‘‘From where I am sitting, it looks
like they are going bust, even though
the rural business could be restruc-
tured to maintain its role in the mar-
ket.
‘‘We still do a bit with them but
there is enough competition now to
get by without them, although if they
did go it would leave only one major
player in Landmark.’’
Mr Beggs said the industry also
owed Elders for some of its pioneer-
ing work, such as taking on AWEX
for the benefit of all woolgrowers.
‘‘But, as a client, I still feel like a
number; their staff move around so
much it is getting harder to have a
good relationship with an Elders
bloke,’’ he said.
Loss of major firm
would be damaging
Andrew Weidemann
Grain grower
Rupanyup
ANDREW Weidemann was at last
week’s Victorian Farmers Federation
conference where he heard Elders man-
aging director Malcolm Jackman speak.
‘‘He seemed very upbeat about the
business, and he should know what is
going on,’’ Mr Weidemann said.
‘‘Producers want as much compe-
+ tition as possible so it would be very
disappointing to lose something
THE writing may have been on
the wall as early as 2008 for
Elders staff, when then chief
operating officer Mike Guerin
removed individual rubbish bins
throughout the company’s Adel-
aide head office.
Projected annual saving:
$20,000.
But the full extent of the
iconic pastoral house’s prob-
lems were laid bare last week
when in the space of just five
weeks it had turned a projected
$55.7 million profit into a loss
of between $8 million and
$14 million.
The company’s immediate
reaction to cutting its costs was
to cut Mr Guerin. Along with
network chief John Molenaar.
That put $1 million back in
the bank, but by its own
admission the company still had
to find another $44 million in
savings — and fast.
Which must mean cutting
people. While chief executive
officer Malcolm Jackman has
promised no internal slash and
burn, he has flagged ‘‘manag-
ing’’ the company’s under-
performers to achieve a 10 per
cent cut.
He is also relying on a
healthy, and traditional, dose of
natural attrition. Unfortunately
for the company, that may come
about as the best and brightest
are cherry-picked by opposition
companies.
Major shareholders also have
started to jump.
Last week, over two days,
IOOF, which only became a
substantial Elders shareholder in
February and recently held as
much as
6.43 per cent
of its registry,
d u m p e d
28.65 million
shares worth
$12.07 mil-
lion. That
leaves QBE Insurance as the
company’s only major share-
holder, with 8.27 per cent of the
registry.
To cap it all off, Slater &
Gordon has announced it is
preparing to launch a class
action related to Elders’ disclos-
ure practices.
Slater & Gordon principal
lawyer James Higgins had been
approached by Elders share-
holders following the latest
downgrade, which sent Elders
shares into free-fall, decimating
the agribusiness company’s
value.
Mr Higgins said shareholders
were tired of Elders’ poor
governance.
Shake-up: Richard Beggs thinks Elders’ rural business could be still restructured. ‘‘Elders’ history of disclosure
of the stature of Elders.
‘‘The work they are doing in grains
is good, more in line with what the
market wants, but I think around my
area they have lost focus and Rodwells
seems to have become the major
player.’’
Mr Weidemann also felt Elders was,
to a degree, a victim of circumstance.
‘‘The supply chain for agricultural
products is volatile, and anyone could
be in the same position as Elders very
quickly. I am sure they won’t be alone in
this over the coming months.’’
+
weeklytimesnow.com.au
Elders has been taken to
the financial brink,
caught in a maelstrom
of falling prices,
increased competition
and a massive
restructure that missed
the mark, ANDREW
MOLE reports
Les Wozniczka
is very poor,’’ he said. ‘‘Share-
holders are understandably
angry and have approached us
about a shareholder class-
action.
‘‘We will begin the investi-
gation immediately.’’
Litigation funder Compre-
hensive Legal Funding LLC
will finance the investigation.
Much also has been made of
Rural Bank’s ‘‘refusal’’ to help
Elders out of its investment in
the forestry managed invest-
ment scheme, which also was
losing millions of dollars.
Rural Bank
chairman Bev
Walters said
the bank, of
which Elders is
a 40 per cent
shareholder
a n d
co-founder, did not refuse the
money.
‘‘MIS projects are under legal
and investment pressures but we
were still going to do the deal. In
the end, however, Elders chose
not to meet our conditions,’’ Mr
Walters said.
‘‘We had to be tighter. Even
Bendigo Bank, which owns 60
per cent of our business, has its
own concerns with its port-
folio.’’
So just where did the wheels
really fall off for the name
which has been, in its many
shapes and forms, synonymous
with rural Australia for the past
171 years?
Bill Beischer, the man who
was chairman of Elders during
Tough times:
Andrew
Weidemann
believes other
companies may
suffer a similar fate
to Elders.
+
weeklytimesnow.com.au The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010 25
+
䊳 䊳 ELDERS CRISIS

a pastoral icon Mr Jackman’s assessment of

changes within the industry ring
true and are being reflected in
other players and their share
prices, with the market now
expecting more profit reviews.
He also has a fundamental
belief that 90 per cent of the
company’s farm-services busi-
ness is done at the farm gate, on
the phone or online, something
which seemed to escape his
immediate predecessors.
‘‘Newman was a buyer and
seller and knew what he was
doing, but Les (Wozniczka) was
a buyer, and a buyer of bits, and
not good at managing any of
them,’’ he said.
Former chief operating offi-
cer Mike Guerin, who worked
with global consultancy
McKinsey to conceive the
regional structure, tried to take
Elders into the future.
It was a management style
that the company tried in the
early 1990s.
Bureaucracy and costs blew
out and Elders was forced to
close 100 branches and remove
more than 1000 people from the
business. You can’t get any
closer to your customers than

F B 1 2 3
through your branch managers.
Historically, these people
know their customers well, and
tailor their products and services
to suit the needs of their clients.
What Mr Jackman is suggest-
ing with his hands-on approach
is that he is going to cut through
anything between him and his
own troops at the coalface, treat

New breed: Elders boss Malcolm Jackman (left), at the Victorian Farmers Federation’s annual general meeting last week, looks to the future.
the Alan Newman-led Futuris
years in the 1990s, is in no
doubt.
‘‘Elders is a people business,’’
he said. ‘‘Alan Newman under-
Mr Hunt out the door in mid-
2007, the company had just
recorded a $100 million-plus
profit. Within weeks, Elders not
only had no managing director,
‘‘Mr Jackman has my
sympathies. He has been left
with a big job, not of his mak-
ing, to do.’’ When Mr Hunt was
pushed, Mr Wozniczka
Minnett, has publicly ques-
tioned Malcolm Jackman over
the plan to cut staff, suggesting
it may be a threat to the cus-
tomer experience. He was also
ninth in just two years and
‘‘with poor company fundamen-
tals we believe Elders will find
it difficult to trade out of its
problems’’.
C M Y K
them as customers and deliver
what they want and need.
There would be millions to
save overnight if the current
20-region structure was pulled
back to 10, and pulling it back
further would compound the
savings. That model has already
been proved — and not that long

WKT 30-JUN-2010 PAGE

stood that, and understood peo-
ple. But the board and the man-
agement of Elders have lost the
plot.’’
Mr Beischer suggested
decisions by Les Wozniczka
(who succeeded Mr Newman as
Futuris CEO) and the board
under chairman Stephen
Gerlach to diversify the busi-
ness laid the foundation for its
undoing.
‘‘Stephen (Gerlach) is a good
Adelaide man, but neither he
nor Wozniczka understood the
it was also without a chief finan-
cial officer, chief operating offi-
cer, strategy chief and boss in
Asia. Finance chief Rick Moody
completed the head office rout
when he walked out in support
of Mr Hunt.
‘‘Greg knew Elders inside
out,’’ Mr Beischer said. ‘‘He
understood the business at every
facet, he knew all the staff and
he knew the clients — how they
thought and what they wanted
and needed.
‘‘I would question anyone
explained to business media he
was looking for ‘‘fresh blood’’.
When also asked why any
change would be made, con-
sidering the strides the rural
business was making under Mr
Hunt’s management, the
concerned Elders was develop-
ing a reputation for a company
that only had bad news to de-
liver.
Jonathon Snape, from South-
ern Cross Equities, expressed
the broking industry’s alarm
that news of the massive profit
turnaround came so suddenly
and so late.
He has still listed Elders as a
speculative buy and said he
would not do that unless he
thought the business could be
turned around. But he said a lot
However, Mr Jackman, who
is now the company’s managing
director and the man who has
put his personal reputation on
the line in being able to turn it
around, remains unshakeable.
‘‘We intend to manage out
the bottom decile to make the
savings we need, rather than
take a machine gun to the busi-
ness,’’ Mr Jackman said.
‘‘Right now, agriculture itself
is being restructured with
changing buying patterns, pres-
sures such as the tighter cattle
ago. Perhaps its destiny is best
summed up by a senior former
Elders manager, who wants to
get the rural business ‘‘away
from corporate raiders, bankers
and management consultants
who believe they can inject their
management structures and
models — and stuff up a per-
fectly good business, which
despite the recent attempts by
Wozniczka and Guerin, has
managed to survive 171 years’’.
‘‘Our farming community
deserves to have at least one

business. It was not companies
they were dealing with, it was
people,’’ Mr Beischer said.
‘‘But their biggest mistake
was getting rid of Elders manag-
ing director Greg Hunt.’’
When Mr Wozniczka pushed
coming in to match that know-
ledge. We had built a rural ser-
vices company with a good
product range and committed
staff and had a business valued
at more than $1 billion — a far
cry from where it stands now.
response was Steve Waugh
scored 100 runs in his last Test.
But the question now upper-
most in the minds of staff, busi-
ness partners and clients, is what
happens next?
Michael Hughes, from Ord
depended now on the 2011 sea-
son.
BBY’s John Welsh has been
harsher, listing Elders with an
‘‘underperform’’ recommen-
dation. He said last week’s
downgrade was the company’s
market into Indonesia, a move
from the recognised branded
products to lower-cost generics.
‘‘But I am going to kick this
thing to make it work and I will
make more friends than I will
lose on the way through.’’
25
strong Australian agribusiness
that’s not just about flogging
fertiliser and chemicals but
about showing leadership and FIRST
doing a better job for Australia’s
farmers,’’ he said. ‘‘What better
name than Elders?’’

Chop ’n’ change

Richard McFarlane
Beef cattle and cropping
Wellington Lodge
Wellington via Tailem Bend, SA
RICHARD McFarlane is a sixth-
generation farmer and runs a major
Angus commercial beef herd and crop-
ping enterprise.
He said his business used to do
‘‘everything’’ through Elders, but
today hardly uses the company, having
switched to another for merchandise
and a new livestock agency — Spence
Dix and Co — for its cattle.
‘‘The big difference for us is the
Merry-go-round: Richard McFarlane no longer uses Elders because of its constantly changing staff. guys at Spence Dix are young, enthusi-
astic and they are going to be here for a
while,’’ Mr McFarlane said.
‘‘Murray Bridge was our Elders
branch, but the staff simply kept chang-
ing . . . the good guys were obviously
identified and moved to bigger roles
but we never seemed to deal with the
same person for long.’’
‘‘Spence Dix and Co are ex Elders
guys who have set up on their own and
we know we are going to be able to
build a long-term relationship.
‘‘That said, there is a lot of history
and emotion surrounding Elders and it
would be a shame to see them fall apart
but I don’t think it will have any impact
on our business.’’ +
weeklytimesnow.com.au
Elders chief Malcolm
Jackman is confident
the company can stay
afloat, writes
ANDREW MOLE
MALCOLM Jackman says 15
years in the New Zealand navy
was about as far as anyone in
this corner of the world could
get from the Australian bush.
Which is why the man who
now has his hand firmly on the
wheel of HMAS Elders openly
declares he brings no know-
ledge of the grassroots business
to his role as the chief executive
officer.
How wrong he is.
Elders began its proud
171-year history as a shipping
line — and built businesses here
to fill its ships and send them
back to England.
As the last man left standing
on the bridge after former cap-
tains Mike Guerin and John
Molenaar walked the plank, Mr
Jackman had better remember
his lessons about what to do on a
sinking ship.
At the weekend, Mr Jackman
refused to consider the good
ship Elders had been holed be-
low the waterline.
Even though there is now just
one layer of management be-
tween him and the farm gate, Mr
Jackman is adamant his com-
mand does not require him to be
sticking his nose in at branch
level.
‘‘Yes, I will be out there, as
often as I can, talking with staff,
listening to them and making
sure they know what I am doing
with their company,’’ Mr
Jackman said.
‘‘But it is not my role to run
the business, my expertise is to
run the company. That’s what I
was brought here to do and
nothing has changed. I am just a
lot closer to the front line.
‘‘I don’t care what people are
saying, they do not know what
is happening inside the com-
pany and I can tell you I am very
confident.’’
So confident that he has
opened his own wallet and pur-
chased 91,500 shares in the
Elders’ leaky boat
to ride out storm
company — at an average of
37.8 cents.
He said a series of meetings
held last week with the principal
players in the syndicate of banks
behind the business showed
there was nothing wrong with
Elders.
No liquidity issues, no sig-
nificant change in the business
profile.
‘‘After working through our
cash projections and detailing
our business plan, the banks re-
affirmed their support on Thurs-
day,’’ Mr Jackman said.
And in all last week’s drama,
he said the market and the
doomsayers missed, or chose to
overlook, some of the group’s
good news.
Its auto division will be
spared the 10 per cent cut the
rest of the business is about to
suffer.
Rather, it will be putting peo-
ple on because the auto market
is picking up steam.
But that is where the good
news ends.
Elders’ forestry division is in
an ever-deepening mess. It start-
ed off forecasting a $45 million
profit and in the end, it struggled
to $1.6 million.
But not even that can faze the
captain.
He is ‘‘exploring’’ different
models and sees potential in
finding a partner through pen-
sion funds or possibly Asian
paper houses.
Mr Jackman said, when the
proverbial manure hit the fan —
as the company’s share price
plummeted last month — the
big ‘‘soul-searching question’’
he asked himself and colleagues
was ‘‘is there a real business
there?’’
‘‘In the first eight months of
the year, we handled 300,000
bales of wool, 10 per cent of the
national grain harvest, marketed
$1.4 billion worth of livestock
— and all through a network of
more than 400 branches,’’ he
The Weekly Times, July 7, 2010
Leading the
way: Elders’
Malcolm
Jackman sees
potential in
finding a
partner through
pension funds
or Asian paper
houses.
said. ‘‘Clearly, we are a real
business with a real place.’’
But Mr Jackman agreed he
was still working out the future
of that ‘‘real’’ business.
The days of staff whose blood
ran Elders red are over.
Elders might be bleeding
right now, but it is bleeding red
ink on the books, which Mr
Jackman said could also be
fixed. ‘‘People say I am just
spinning it, but they do not
know how good our team is,’’
he said. ‘‘That’s why my num-
ber is available to everyone,
staff, shareholders, bankers and
media. If you have got a ques-
tion, or a problem, just ask me.’’
15
+
Japan
FMD
on the
wane
THE worst of the latest
Foot and Mouth Disease
outbreak in Japan appears
to be over.
The unprecedented
FMD outbreak in the
Miyazaki region has seen
188,753 animals —
153,676 pigs and 35,019
cattle — destroyed since
April 20, according to the
World Organisation of
Animal Health.
Since the first reported
case in April there have
been 290 outbreaks of
FMD recorded with the
WOAH.
Movement restrictions
in the infected areas are
gradually being removed.
Restrictions on stock
movement in the Miyazaki
region will be lifted next
week, provided no further
FMD cases are reported. It
has been almost a month
since the last case was
found on June 18.
The self-imposed export
ban on all beef is still in
place except to Hong Kong
and Macau.
There has been no evi-
F B 1 2 3
dence so far to confirm that
the outbreak has affected
beef consumption, or beef
supplies in Japan.
Australian exports of
beef into Japan have not
been affected. According
to Meat and Livestock
Australia, last year the
Miyazaki region was the
C M Y K
third-largest supplier of
beef cattle within Japan,
accounting for about 15
per cent of all Wagyu
calves to the nation’s lot
feeders.
– MATILDA ABEY
WKT 7-JUL-2010 PAGE
15
FIRST