Merger

[cottonpicken]

Well bg your up 13% on 500,000 volume.

[cottonpicken]

What commoditie boom?eh pars

[Fransisco]

Agstar, there you go again with the fearmongering. A voluntary board is not its deathnell. There are plenty of producers out there who will still want the board to negotiate on their behalf and under the voluntary scenario it won't be limited to the present board grains.

[agstar77]

Not fearmongering, just reality. No handling facilities and no financial backing not very likely to be able to compete, no matter how good your reputation or marketing skill.

[agstar77]

Did I mention the loss of employees raided by the large grain companies and the loss of critical mass for an effective world marketer?

[Fransisco]

Reality is they don't need brick and mortar and are probably in a much better and more flexible position because of it. Not being locked down to particular facilities has advantages, they will all be competing for the grain.

[Fransisco]

LOL, loss of critical mass! How much of the worlds marketshare of wheat does the board handle? The last report said 11% not that long ago it was 15% going back a few more years it was 20%.

The status quo is doing a real bang up job in the critical mass department.

[chaffmeister]

Agstar77:

Oh, puleese.

You talk about grain companies raiding CWB employees yet Adrian Measner used to talk about how the demise of the CWB would be the demise of 400 jobs in Winnipeg. Which is it, Agstar?

As for critical mass, Fransisco hit the nail on the head, but here's another striking blow - if the CWB goes voluntary on barley, how does that impact the "critical mass"? The way I see it, in an open market Bob and Joan will be much busier than they are right now. Who knows, if the CWB management and BOD really saw the opportunity they are faced with, they may even need to add some talent to the barley desk.

[Burbert]

Agrisnore has been a dog from day one. It is still a dog, and will remain a dog, it doesn't matter who it jumps into bed with!

[TOM4CWB]

Burbert,
Proverbs(11:27) He who seeks good finds goodwill,
but evil comes to him who searches for it.

[just_wondering]

Agstar your comments on farmer elected BOD makes me think about a few things
1) Bench strength in AU and CWB there were too many farmer elected directors some would definitely be an asset but what other skills do they bring to the table? Finance HR mergers/acquisitions many things about running billion $ companies that are not everyday skills on even the best run farm.

2)Elected on single platforms
CWB single desk support gets you elected
A.U. open market supporters and be nice to delegates at AGM
an example of this was that banker who did not get elected to A.U BOD because he wasn't a very good public speaker and he talked like a banker, they needed his skill set recruited him and then the delegates did not like his speech so he got booted???
As far as private companies who they have run them as B.O.D. only matters to shareholders.
The CWB matters to me as a person forced to do business with them I have a right to lobby/call for choices.

What chaffmeister said about the terminals is the biggest question there is already one sitting idle from the last round of consolidation.
As a farmer in the country there are many offers on who to sell to and inland positions are very competitive it's the ports that are the bottleneck where we need more choices

[wd9]

bgmb, re: public traded company and no benefit.

If it is a good investment, buy some shares and you can have a piece of all that wealth. Farmers don't have to own stuff to make money.