Western Australian wheat grower Mic Fels “Halcyon Downs” Esperance, WA writes:
I encourage wheat growers who haven’t yet voted in AWB’s EGM to do so as a priority.
The No vote was about to prevail by a margin of 0.3%, with 27% participation last week, which means there must have literally been only a handful of votes in it.
YOUR VOTE DOES AND SHOULD COUNT.
Rupert Murdoch’s News corp is often referred to as another dual class shareholder company similar to AWB. Obviously there are some big differences but consider this.
If Rupert wanted to retire and give up his control of Newscorp, would he just tell the board they can take over now and thanks for the memories? I’m pretty sure he would say: here’s control of the company, how about say a million or so shares to compensate me for handing it over?
The farming industry has a sorry track record of giving away what it should trade, are we the only ones playing nice guys in the cold hard commercial world?
We are being ripped off if we just give away control of one of Australia’s top 200 companies. It has a real value, Rupert knows that, Brendan and Gordon definitely know that and we are crazy if we don’t expect that in return for our constitutional right to control AWB.
If the No vote gets up this (the 2nd) time, the AWB board will have to get real and come to us with a decent offer next time. They can’t just keep serving up the same rehashed dud deal. This should be a win-win not a win-lose deal. The B class shareholders will be getting a bit towey about what this is all costing, it is in their (our) interests to wrap this up too.
Some would say it is too hard to work out what it is worth, but it should be a straight negotiation as with any commodity.
We put what we expect on the table, lets say 2000 shares per A class entitlement, and no doubt the board, representing B class shareholders, will come back with an offer reflecting the price they are prepared to pay for the gain they expect to get.
If it is good enough we support the yes vote with over 75% and they get to walk away with control, if not they need to meet the market with a better deal.
The board is not going to like this idea but that’s purely because they will have to buy something they had hoped to steal.
The loyalty “vote no” argument never convinced me, and ironically it seems to be some kind of bizarre loyalty driving A class shareholders to do ” what’s right” for AWB by voting yes, even if they stand to gain nothing from it.
Make no bones about it, if we normalise AWB it will not have any allegiance to us and that is just the real commercial world.
If we want to mix it with the big players we need to grow up a bit and defend our right to a fair share of the pie.
This is no trifle matter, please vote if you haven’t yet done so and I hope I have given you enough reason to vote NO. Feel free to vote Yes next time if we are made a decent offer.
Please forward this to anyone who you think might be interested, our networks are our only ally against the massive publicity machine at AWB.
You need to vote before 2pm Monday 1st September.
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Mic Fels is a delegate on the WAfarmers grains council.
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Have your Say!
Given that the majority of farmers are still B class share-holders and have shown loyalty to the wheat board, won’t AWB either buying a class shares or transferring in what is essentially a type script swap dilute the value of ordinary shares?
Also, wasn’t our equity in the company in the form of B class shares initially?
Also, aren’t east-coast farmers disadvantaged by this deal? I might be wrong but aren’t A class shares distributed based on deliveries in the past three years?
Surely, surely there has got to be a better proposal than this?
I mean if we were to take a radical approach, de-listing the company and privatising is not out of the question. There is precedence and it is certainly not uncommon.
I mean it would require finding private equity backers and it would in a way determine whether the company is deemed to be competitive under a dual class share structure. It would be a great litmus test to determine if in fact the company is deemed to be profitable by its peers in the financial markets.
At the moment the company is half-pregnant, it presently has two competing masters, B class shareholders and A class farmers. There is an obvious conflict of interest, as demonstrated by the vocal protestations by both sides in the recent AGM.
Hi Mick,
We certainly must vote NO to the proposal put by the board at this time.
I have been told the AWB have some of their marketers and even Landmark personnel on a payment system that encourages them to talk to A classer’s to change their mind.
I think you are spot on with your “some kind of warped loyalty” idea. Some though are just confused and sick of the battle.
In the event the board fail this third time, when they take the final vote, we will need to change directors pretty quickly too some who will abide by the intent of the constitution.
But I doubt we can expect too much reciprocal loyalty from a new board anyway, they will at all times have to do what is best for the company as is their duty.
Hows the season in the west?
Our marketer was set up to market our wheat with or with out the Single Desk.
If we vote away our control we will as a group of producers suffer acute embarrassment when we collectively come to our senses.
If we lose control I have no doubt that the corporates will collect handsomely-the company will be chopped up and our intellectual property of 60 years standing will be frittered away.
With our marketer still carrying it’s grower obligations I feel that we can build the wheat industry around it and gain some stability and certainty.
I was told yesterday of an instance where a younger Landmark person approached a holder of A class shares who had already voted with the intention to having him change his vote. As the visit was taking place a “New” voting form arrived on the fax.
Is it legitimate to change your vote if you have already voted and is it moral to coheres a voter to change their mind.
Certainly not moral in my view.
Love some names to go with this?
To the best of my knowledge AWB has paid for the NO Voting list from Computershare which I thought would be illegal, so they (AWB) can continue to canvass those voters who have voted against change. They arrived by Express Post or Fax.
The YES vote is not being canvassed, just the NO VOTE.
I would have thought that once a vote goes in the ballot box it is then confidential and should stay that way.
The Australian Electoral Commission should surely be looking at this breach of trust.