Heavy market share losses affect Silver Fern Farms’ financial performance

In recent weeks there has been an exchange of views about PPCS’s acrimonious takeover of Richmond in 2003. Keith Cooper, ex CEO of the renamed Silver Fern Farms, emerged from anonymity in Middlemarch to castigate the appointment of Sam Robinson to the board of Silver Fern Farms as the Shanghai Maling representative. He was critical of Richmond’s rejection of the original approach by PPCS to buy the Freesia Investments shares from the Meat Board in the mid-1990s and Robinson’s role as Richmond’s chairman.

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NZ sheep and beef farmers more profitable than Northern Hemisphere counterparts

When sheep and beef farmers in New Zealand grumpily ponder their forecast returns for 2016-17, they may be able to take some comfort from the precarious state of farmers in Europe, particularly the UK where they are facing even more uncertainty of income.

Silver Fern Farms comes crashing back to earth

Chairman Rob Hewett wasn’t joking early last year when he warned that the 2016 result would not be in line with budget. The actual result was a $30.6 million after tax loss compared with a profit of $24.5 in 2015, although a significant part of the latest year’s result was attributable to a $22.4 million non-cash accounting writedown related to the anticipated Shanghai Maling investment. Nevertheless, at a more comparable level the net pre-tax operating profit remained in negative territory, producing a $7.5 million loss against $30.8 million in the previous year.