Alliance Grain Aquires Finora

[highwayman]

With Viterra now back into the lentil processing industry, how long before Mayo and company target Alliance for aquisition. Viterra's return to the industry does seem to be supporting some lentil class values on account of increased processing capacity.

[gustgd]

Most profitable meeting I ever went to was to get in on the Alliance IPO.

[LWeber]

http://cxa.marketwatch.com/TSX/en/Market/intchart.aspx?symb=VT

pull down menu in time frame - use "all data"

Brings up 1996 - 2009

A good reminder that it is not "profit" until you actually sell.

How many farmers are holding shares that were worth $275.00 at subscription (after all the splits - that is the value) that are now worth
$9.75?

[gustgd]

Good point about Vitera LWeber
maybe I should cash in some chips.

from another market commentator.
How Hursh talks about "concerns whenever marketing options disappear" he does not realize impact of the White elephant in the room.

Alliance buys Finora
Alliance Grain Traders, known by many as Saskcan Pulse, has announced another major acquisition – the second in a week. The latest, announced yesterday, is a deal to purchase the assets of Finora. This comes hot on the heels of Alliance announcing the purchase of Parent Seeds in Manitoba. The Finora deal involves four pulse and specialty crop processing plants in three locations. There are two plants at Wilkie, a plant at Assiniboia and a plant at Gibbons, Alberta about 40 km north of Edmonton. The purchase price is US $8.9 million. Alliance says all the Finora processing plant staff and plant management team will remain. In the Parent Seeds deal, the Parent family will continue to manage the facilities. While farmers will continue to deal with familiar people at the plants, there has been a dramatic consolidation in the companies buying pulse crops. Alliance already has two plants in Regina, two plants at Rosetown, a plant at Aberdeen and a facility at Milestone. The company also has operations in Turkey, Australia and the U.S. On one hand, it’s great to see a Saskatchewan-based company grow to be such a major player. On the other hand, there are concerns whenever marketing options disappear. I’m Kevin Hursh.

[gustgd]

Highway man/any one else
Is Vitera processing any lentils? I was under the understanding that they were just giving them a quick clean then bulk exporting.
In fact some of the special crops folks are quite upset about the lack of value added. Or, they just may not like competition.

[LWeber]

"lack of value added"

thats funny....

How does spending an extra 10 minutes in a smaller cleaner at 250 bu per hour add more value than running lentils throught an HE33 at 3500 bph. I suppose the cleaner operator at the smaller plant can make that argument.

Farmers are going to need a heavyweight to keep Austin Power's nemesis in check ...

Good to see you back CP. I was about to phone the Mexicale Commandos and pull you off a beach.

[Zaphod]

Value added would be hulling, splitting, milling, etc. My impression is that this is Alliance's business strategy but have no idea how much they actually process.

[dave4441]

How about 50-60% of the lentils. Viterra next to nothing in the big picture

[parsley]

<p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-farmers-can-take-bath-in-due.html"](Due Diligence)[/URL]</strong></p>

[highwayman]

Wether you want to call it processing or handling it doesn't really matter. Mobil Grain has been doing the same thing for years (a quick run through the cleaner and into the railcar) and have been very successful in the process. In my own past experience in selling pulses to the major grain companies, the net result for me has been substantially better with these companies as opposed to the smaller processing companies with regards to grade, dockage, shrinkage and promptness of payment. When it involves the yellow pea market in our area, I have seldom seen any other processing company out perform the line companies.

[grainboy]

Saskcan doesnt do many Beans: buys Parent, Saskcan doesnt do many Peas or Mustard buys Finora, can't do PL480 tenders buy ND Plants remember the days when Walkers seemed like a big company? now a company with three plants seems small. ALLIANCE is huge. I just hope we dont lose to many more & lose the price competition.

[gustgd]

check out # 11
http://leaderpost.specialsections.shoplocal.com/canwest/ss/index.aspx?webstoryid=15067356&area=SS&type=page&A dgroupID=131242&Locations=reginaleaderpost


some pretty distinguished company
Davidson boy makes good, so ya call me a homer

[tipsy]

For 9m I kind-of surprised a group of producers and/or others didn't come forward and buy.On the surface seems like a resonable purchase to me!

[dave4441]

9 million dollars, producers, processing plant. Reminds me of Y2K.

All kidding aside, for the number of facilities and compared to previous sales, it isn't too bad of a price. Can not build it for that. Then again, it was only a couple years ago that 10 Million dollar assets in the special crop industry could be bought for 10 cents on the dollar. Buying the assets is only the start. Apparently guys on the prairie are a little tighter then guys in Toronto. Good to see capital coming into special crop industry.

[LWeber]

Finora - est. 1990
Finora to ADM - 10 mil - date?
ADM to Noble - 4 mil - 2003
Noble to AGT - 8.9 mil - 2009