this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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Farmers vote to sell Fonterra's Mainland, Anchor brands (www.rnz.co.nz)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Dave@lemmy.nz to c/newzealand@lemmy.nz
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Fonterra's farmer shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the sale of the brands like Mainland and Anchor to a French company.

More than 88 percent of the votes cast at a special meeting backed the $4.2 billion sale to French dairy giant Lactalis.

ASB Bank estimated the sale proceeds would ultimately be worth about $4.5b to the economy, with farmer shareholders receiving an average tax-free payout of about $392,000 if the sale went ahead.

The sale to the world's biggest dairy group, French-based Lactalis, is the final step in Fonterra's transition to a slimmed-down New Zealand-based supplier of raw ingredients and high-value products to other manufacturers.

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm actually curious about the wider system. Farmers own Fonterra, right? And I believe this is a requirement to sell their milk to them. So if I wanted to go and start a dairy farm and provide milk to Fonterra, I'd have to buy an appropriate number of shares, right?

So if this sale of part of Fonterra has an average payout of almost $400k, and presumably this is not the bulk of the value of Fonterra, then that must mean that farmers are paying millions of dollars to buy Fonterra shares just to start a farm?

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

https://www.fonterra.com/nz/en/flexible-shareholding/supply-fonterra.html

You have to eventually hold 33% of your 3-season average milk supply in shares. And you have 6 years to get to that level of holding.

I can't find an easy guide to work out what that actually works out to in money for a typical farm. I think there are Fonterra shares on the NZX but I don't know if they're the same as what the farmer's hold.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Ah thanks. So farmers have to hold 33% of what they supply (measured in dollars of milk to value of shares I guess??), but can hold up to 4x.

So the average payout might be $400k, but it's likely new farmers or those struggling will get much less, and the wealthy successful farmers that could afford to buy more shares will get a lot more.