Fonterra Shareholders Fund

[traineeinvestor]

Last night's BBC World News - Business Live included an interview with the CEO of Arla, the big European dairy co-op company. A banner across the bottom of the screen stated that Arla's brands included Anchor, which hitherto I had understood (assumed?) to be a Fonterra brand. Question - Does Fonterra use the Anchor brand under licence, or some other commercial arrangement? Or has the BBC got it wrong there?

According to Wikipedia, it is owned by Fonterra and Aria manufactures in the UK under license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_(brand)

[macduffy]

According to Wikipedia, it is owned by Fonterra and Aria manufactures in the UK under license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_(brand)

Thanks, good old Wikipedia!

[Marilyn Munroe]

Fonterra in their financial releases refer to something called a LME but don't define it in the glossary of their annual review.

What is a LME?

Boop boop de do
Marilyn

[Brovendell]

Liquid Milk Equivalent

[Out to lunch]

LME is a standard for calculating the litres of raw milk required for each product (1kg of cheese is like 6.5LME). 1 LME has a standardised amount of milk solids: 4.2% fat and 3.5% protein.

Connecting the output to the input, about 13 LME/litres of standard raw milk = 1 kilogram of milk solid and for this you're forecasted to currently receive $6.75 from Fonterra who will pick it up at your farmgate.

[blackcap]

LME is a standard for calculating the litres of raw milk required for each product (1kg of cheese is like 6.5LME). 1 LME has a standardised amount of milk solids: 4.2% fat and 3.5% protein.

Connecting the output to the input, about 13 LME/litres of standard raw milk = 1 kilogram of milk solid and for this you're forecasted to currently receive $6.75 from Fonterra who will pick it up at your farmgate.

Yikes that works out to about 52 cents per litre. That is still pretty low but I guess better than a while back. Still gotta wonder why we pay $1.60 per litre and more at the supermarket.

[BlackPeter]

Yikes that works out to about 52 cents per litre. That is still pretty low but I guess better than a while back. Still gotta wonder why we pay $1.60 per litre and more at the supermarket.

That's because they take all the good stuff out of the milk before they sell it and than they need to add calcium and vitamins and stuff like that. Yak. Obviously - you need to pay for their work (whether you appreciate it or not) and obviously for their and the supermarkets margins ...

[winner69]

That's because they take all the good stuff out of the milk before they sell it and than they need to add calcium and vitamins and stuff like that. Yak. Obviously - you need to pay for their work (whether you appreciate it or not) and obviously for their and the supermarkets margins ...

...and the CEO's outrageous salary

[Raz]

...and the CEO's outrageous salary

That was the price for stability and managing risk..if he walked when times were dark it would have been interesting to see what happened.

In a risk adverse world, the board would look at selecting a senior exec with industry experience and similar or larger scaled business.. they would have a dozen people to choose from, world wide..they would have paid whatever they needed as being blamed for a hire without the above places the blame on the board and this kills a respective directors career in our business world.

[Out to lunch]

Theo didn't get a payrise during the downturn. $5m of remuneration was LTIP. I think the remuneration reflects a global business and Fonterra's recent opex savings.
There are no additives for normal milk in NZ - but 50c sounds right for picking it up from the gate: freight, bottling, processing, distributing etc. Probably makes less sense when the milk price was $3.90, partially explains why Fonterra makes more money in a low milk price environment.
As such, as a unitholder you'll be hoping for low farmgate milk prices to continue.