Originally Posted by
macduffy
I don't hold any shares in PGW these days but as a former shareholder in Wrightsons - and Wright Stephensons then Fletcher Challenge (remember them?) before them - I take a casual interest in the company, waiting for an opportune time to invest, which never seems to eventuate!
Many years ago, I attended an EGM when Wrightsons sought shareholder approval to sell Wrightson Farmers' Finance to Rabobank. The company had endured one of those periodic hard years and selling the finance company seemed a sensible way out of their difficulties. Chairman, the late Sir Ron Trotter, presented a good case for the sale but he was opposed by several farmer shareholders who warned that losing the finance arm, with its seasonal financing of many farmers, would sever its links with its clientele who would then have no particular reason to stay with Wrightsons and would gravitate to the co-ops who could offer member rebates. They spoke with some passion but lost the vote and Rabobank bought the finance co.
It don't think that the company has ever recovered from this. The merger with PGG followed, as has the establishment of a new finance offshoot, but I sense that PGW's day in the sun has passed and that the old "stock and station" companies have been well and truly supplanted by the co-ops.