Pros and Cons of the CWB Sale!

[SASKFARMER3]

THis is a tough one for me! All those years this organization took money and lots of money in some years from our farm to build buildings trips abroad, teaching countries to grow wheat, rail cars, boats etc. Money which would have been really nice on our farm some years.
So with no real delivery point in our area of the province I see this as a end to us getting a dollar for the $100s they took.
Pros I believe we just became the supplier of Good HRS to the Saudis.
Cons they own the company and if the Three family owned companies don't care to change the process why would one of the richest countries in the world care to spend more for a commodities.
Pro the cash or what ever smoke screen the news release had on shares in the new company. Farmers close to these points should haul their and do ok.
Con they can buy your share out in 7 years for what ever and your shit out of luck on future dividends like a privately held company.
Pro to me with Saudi grain probably heading out of East coast the company will have great way to get grain out of Canada.
Con railways will still not cooperate as they will not give preferential treatment to a new company if old boys club doesn't get any better service.
Pros looks good on the media for the conservatives.
Cons looks good for Ralph or the old NDP guard to go hard on a election issue.
Pro Better to have a new Billionaire in the group of Family run grain companies than letting the remaining three just take it for nothing.
Con another Billionaire is not the answer to bigger profits for a farmer. Buy low sell high. Ah you Mr. Farmer are the Buy low part of the equation. You never will be the sell high.
So we have winners and losers as always in Agriculture. Time will tell but for me what this organization did to our farm is criminal as bad as any thing done to the aboriginal population. We farmers were used by mother England to take cheap prairie grain and help feed the world in the beginning then once the web was created it shifted to cushy jobs and became like any other crown corp except it was paid for by the farmers.
So yes its sold and again like the Crow and every thing before it Farmers never get paid what they should of for the removal of each thing. Efficiencies were suppose to happen.
How well is that working out.
Ah farming where selling out is looking better each and every day. Another South African has become our neighbour maybe need to introduce my self before he figures out.

[bucket]

Actually it could have remained canadian owned has ritz let farmers put an actual bid on it.

Canadian farmers could have bought it, shitcanned the management hired someone like mayo to run it like viterra and made it very successful.

Like shipping grain and bringing back fertilizer.

Even the existing cwb didn't explore that option of logistics like they could have after boasting all those years about their great abilities in logistics.

[dmlfarmer]

Good analysis
I would like to add a couple more points.
First, this is not a new grain company as it is being touted. It is a merger of all of the CWB assets with a FEW eastern Canadian Bunge assets. So it will likely make no difference in competition as these are all existing facilities.

The need for the eastern terminals in the deal is obvious but you need to ask why include the Quebec elevators? Is this to sell the deal to eastern voters and farmers? How much of Quebec grain was sold to SA before and will this displace western grains which was being sold? Or were these underused Bunge facilities which they are downloading?

The Saudis are likely bringing all the cash to the table through a relatively new sovereign wealth fund that has no other known assets other than cash and less than 50 employees. What concerns me is the web page for this company clearly states the only mandate for this fund is to ensure an affordable supply of grain to SA. If this is true, we have just given a crucial supply chain link to a foreign wealth fund who is more concerned with fulfilling their needs than selling Canadian grain.

Now look at who has a competitive advantage in the SA market? Canada prairie farmers an ocean and half a continent away or the eastern European countries which are much closer. Just because they own some elevators in Canada does not mean these smart business SA businessmen will pay more for grain than what they will pay any other supplier. So we will still compete with the lowest cost supplier. Only now the buyer seeking the lowest cost grain also owns some of our elevators and terminals and why would they want to compete for higher prices against themselves if food supply is their primary goal.

I am afraid what they actually wanted and was given was a reserve of grains and the supply chain to get it there. If eastern Europe blows up, they have back up source of food.

It is no different than farmers figuring fertilizer or fuel is going up or is going to be short so they stockpile it for future needs. We have a cash rich society who have just covered there food needs for pennies on the dollar.

We have even less transparency in the grains market given this deal!

[tweety]

Pro, Justin Trudeau can't reinstate it as easily.

[bucket]

It certainly would not appear that an end user like Salic would use the markets to price grain when they can issue a tender or ask bunge for a price.

The canadian government ****ed up the transportation file and the implementation of the open market and now they close it up even tighter with another questionable deal.

Ritz could have resigned instead of continually showing how he can be bought off.

[mcfarms]

British royalty or Saudi princes doesn't matter as long as the pewants keep supplying that cheap grain To their rulers.

[mcfarms]

Typed peasants damn auto correct

[grassfarmer]

"Time will tell but for me what this organization did to our farm is criminal as bad as any thing done to the aboriginal population."

Maybe a prize for the most ignorant AV comment ever is in order?

[bucket]

Gerry ritz is a bitter man about the cwb.

Even I have taken a second look at what I believed and re thought what would have been better deal for western Canadian farmers.

The implementation of an open market without transparent and accountable reporting should have given ritz time to pause and re think his next move.

Eventually some will realize the mistakes he made hurt western Canadian farmers more than the status quo.

He really needed to fix the transportation and reporting issues before paying the admission fees for another company at the grain "families" tea.

[SASKFARMER3]

Grass what the cwb did t farmers was criminal! Your family was in Europe getting fed by U.S.! It was like all othe claims a act that hurt people! Abuse!

[jd3007]

All this is is another grain company starting up in Canada. We can't move the grain we have so I doubt adding a new player will help anything at this time. They don't have many facilities and like any new company will have growing pains. Look at what happened to places like T22, eventually Cargill took over when things went south. Bunge will do the same here when it comes time to buy the farmers shares.

[riders2010]

I think Steve guaranteed cheap grain supply in exchange for Saudi raising oil prices.
We re over there bombing in exchange for higher oil it the king said we want your cheap wheat also. In six months oil will be 150 a barrel. Wheat will be 4.00. And we ll pay higher than world price right here in canada.

[macdon02]

Unless the Sauds are gonna declare a jihad on the railways, Im not sure I can see anything good coming from this. Why not buy somebody in Ontario? I guess even with the freight we will produce for less. Im conservative, Ritz is a f#$%up. Sorry Hoback your not getting my vote this go around. I have no idea whos getting my vote but it wont be any of the big three. They all suck.

[farmaholic]

I would never defend Ritz but he is only the talking head. He is not solely responsible for these decisions... remember, he is the guy who thought ostrich farming had a future in Canada of all places. Enough said.

[grassfarmer]

SF3, you truly are clueless. To compare your "plight" during the CWB era to that of the aboriginal population is disgusting. If things were so bad how did you manage to expand to your famous 100 quarters and all the exotic holidays? Different reality to the guys on the reserve and the residential schools.
I know you revel in playing the "poor me" role but this comparison is offensive.