Chairman of the Mackay Sugar board Andrew Cappello came here last week, to gauge the appetite of Proserpine growers for a potential merger with Mackay. Now, after Thursday’s meeting Mr Cappello says he has a fair idea of what growers want.
“We have a lot of contacts with the grass-roots growers and we did what they requested, which was to come up and provide the framework to what our model would look like. Yes, it’s difficult for them at this stage to compare this with the offer from Sucrogen, but this is what our business model would be and that’s what they have to decide on,” Mr Cappello said.
“The clear message we got was they want some sort of guarantee that we could sure up their financial position if they voted the Sucrogen offer down. We would like to guarantee them 100 percent but it’s still early days. As we move closer to the voting date I’m sure we will be able to provide them with more certainty."
Mr Cappello denied claims that Tully took precedence over Proserpine by those who believe Mackay Sugar has come forward with too little too late.
“Tully came on the scene earlier than Proserpine but it was always our intention to involve the three mills in one larger milling company,” he said.
Mr Cappello maintained that at this stage there would be no cash offer comparable to the $115million Sucrogen bid, saying, “Our offer is about the merger”.
“Our interest in Proserpine is always about involving the growers. It’s a much more stable business model, where your suppliers are the owners."
Mr Cappello said if nothing else, the visit by the board had served to dispel any misinformation and give growers something else to think about.
“I think there’s a reasonably good acceptance of our model. The growers can see there’s a lot of upsides for them in our offer, eg the cane payment formula and also in the furfural earn out – as the furfural plant proves itself they will be able to acquire more value. However there are still some growers who want to compare eggs with eggs,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment