NZ Rural Business: Silver Fern Secures At Least $21m
October 12th, 2009
South Island meat co-operative Silver Fern Farms, has ended up raising a tenth of the funds it would have garnered by selling a half stake to Wrightson last year. Chairman Eoin Garden diplomatically says the low-wattage outcome is neither a success nor a failure because there is no pressing need for the funds.
Of the 21m $1 shares subscribed for, “a high number of shareholders” took up the cooperative’s deferred payment offer, giving them three years to pay, so Silver Fern may be sitting on very little actual cash from the transaction. What it has gained in theory, is a mechanism for raising more funds via further share issues. A bigger portion opted to exchange their old co-op shares for the new class of ordinary share – with 67.5% having made the swap based on figures available at the close.
Regardless of turn-out, Silver Fern also gets to remove redemption risk from its books when the shares become tradable. Garden will lead a slimmed-down board of eight, including five farmer representatives and three independents, including Tony Balfour, marketing chief at merino clothing brand Icebreaker.
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