Quote Originally Posted by Balance View Post
Westland Dairy as a reference point for how the Chinese operate:

Most of us can remember wondering (and then, laughing) at the Chinese company Yili paying $3.41 per share (vs independent valuation of $0.88 to $1.38) for the loss making Westland and taking over Westland's heavy debt burden of $342m.

Well, turned out Yili knew exactly what they were doing - turnover has increased by 52% to $1.065b from the $698m in 2019 when Yili took over the company. More importantly, Yili has turned Westland losses to profits - $38.9m in 2022 and $55.9m in 2023.

So a Chinese company with unequalled access to overseas markets (especially China) and deep pockets bought a NZ dairy company which was in financial distress and under its management and ownership, turned it into a highly profitable growth dairy company.

Sounds familiar?

Things very different in today's environment- the China domestic industry has grown up, has become very capable and much safer. CCP driving a nationalistic buy local campaign. Chinese companies were paying over the odds to buy expertise and process for reasons of food security. That ship has largely sailed with almost no stainless steel investment in NZ anymore, and places like Happy Valley, Bodco, DNL etc all facing huge capacity and no demand issues. What was true for Westland, and to an extent Synlait when Mitsui wanted out- that was good for Bright. Is more investment in NZ good for Bright? time will tell. Maybe not.