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CEOMalcolmJackman

JJ

CEOMalcolmJackman

104 The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 $1.50 (In

Fertility focus urgedByBRIANCLANCY

THE high turn-off of ewes isjeopardising the future of theprime lamb industry.

So says farm consultant andc ha i rm an o f t he B es tw oo lBestlamb group Jason Trompf.

Mr Trompf said the big risk forthe prime lamb sector was ashortage of lambs to meet demand.

He said higher demand wouldresult in higher prices and buyingresistance.

He said a sustainable prime lambindustry depended upon a lift inflock fertility and higher lambmarking percentages.

Mr Trompf said the past 20 yearshad seen the national sheep flockplummet from 170 million to 72million, with the number of ewesfalling from 70 million to 40million and increased lamb slaugh-terings.

He said there were big opportun-ities to boost lamb survival andmarking rates with the nationalaverage marking rate in prime lambflocks rising just 1 per cent in thepast two decades.

S pe ak in g a t l as t w ee k sBestwool Bestlamb conference inBendigo Mr Trompf advocated anincrease in twinning rates, particu-larly for Merino ewes.

Toland Poll Merino stud princi-pal Phil Toland, who runs a flock of2000 Merino ewes at Violet Town,said he was prepared to sacrifice a10 per cent cut in fleece weights fora 10 per cent lift in fertility.

Mr Toland said that, in his farmbusiness, wool gave him a netreturn of $30 a head while surplussheep sales were generating $90 perhead.

I have always been passionate

about wool, but I find it moreefficient to reduce wool cuts toboost fertility he said.

Mr Toland said he was achievingthis goal by selecting a plainer-bodied sheep, particularly a lambwith a wrinkle score of three orless.

Lambpro principal Tom Bull, ofHolbrook, in southern NSW, wastaking wool right out of his pro-ductivity equation.

Mr Bull, who is a breeder of PollDorset and Primeline maternalrams, said woolly sheep only addedto the costs.

Nevertheless, Mr Bull said hepreferred to stick with his currentbreeding base for the sake of skinvalues rather than go with a breedthat shed wool, such as a Dorper.

He said skin values could gener-ate up to $25 a ewe after allowingfor twinning.

But while Mr Bull was pushingthe cause of the specialist primelamb producer the self-replacingMerino flock had several vocalsupporters.

Hamilton consultant PeterSchroder said some of his bestclients running self-replacing Mer-ino flocks with 40 per cent drysheep were generating wool andsurplus sheep income to produce a5-10 per cent return on their assets.

It was a point endorsed by MrTrompf.

He said benchmarking hadshown that a crossbred flock need-ed to achieve a lambing markingpercentage of 140-150 per cent toequal the returns of a Merino flockwith 90 per cent lamb marking.

Put customers first, Page 102

Winnersare grinners: youcantwipethesmileoffthefacesofWerner,JosyandMarkusLang.Thedairyfarmers,fromTaturain northernVictoria,triumphedinlastweeksDairyBusinessof theYearawards,whichrecognisetopoperatorsinVictoria,SouthAustralia,WesternAustralia,TasmaniaandsouthernNSW.Report,Page92.Picture:YURIKOUZMIN

Share price savag

ByANDREWMOLE

On th

brinkELDERS the most iconicname in Australian agri-business is again fightingfor its survival.

After last week announcing itsninth profit downgrade in two years,the 171-year-old pastoral house hasseen its share price savaged to a re-cord low of 33 cents, down from a12-month high of $4.30.

It had recovered to 38c at noon

yesterday, yet the body blows keepcoming.

IOOF, one of its two major share-holders, announced it was sellingdown, leaving QBE, with just over 8per cent, as Elders last institutionalheavyweight investor.

Law firm Slater & Gordon is in-vestigating a class action after beingapproached by disgruntled share-holders and receiving financial back-ing from litigation funder Compre-hensive Legal Funding LLC.

Only a weekend of itiation avoided the withdelcredere underwritingreached the point whereDelcredere Agents Assoc

bers had been warned thto stop selling to EldeAustralian Cattle Compaowned subsidiary of the

The warning was wMonday.

ContinuedPage4

RulesView,Page27

LIVESTOCK

Restockers battleto buy sheep.

Page 103

WOOL

Retailers snubAustralian wool.

Page 101

DOWLER

MARKETS

Prices ease after bumpersales at Warrnambool.

Page 95

DAIRY

Positive thoughts leadto industry award wins.

Page 92

HEMPHILL

CROPS

Proposed grain peakgroups compared.

Page 87

HORTICULTURE

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2/5

4 The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010 weeklytimesnow.com.au+

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Elders on the brink as profit slumps

Slimpickings: shareanalysts havedowngradedEldersshares to holds andspeculativebuys.

From Page 1The warning was on the back

of losing about 250,000 tonnesof market share in the WA ferti-liser market and the walkout ofalmost the whole dairy divisionin 2008.

When former Elders Victor-ia, Riverina and Tasmania man-ager David Pemberton and hislivestock manager, Scott Lord,

also walked and set up their ownconsultancy in 2008, about 50key staff followed, along withtheir clients.

S t o c k a n a l y s t s h a v edowngraded their ratings toholds and speculative buys.

It is a shockwave that hasspread through the industry,with stocks such as AWB owner of Landmark, Eldersmajor competitor and chemi-cal supplier Nufarm, also down.

T h e a s s a u l t o f g e n er i cglyphosate products on the tra-ditionally lucrative croppingm a r k e t , t h e e x p l o s i o n o f smaller, low-overhead agencies,a flat rural real estate market,low cattle prices and a strongAustralian dollar have all con-verged to batter the big players.

But Elders chief executive

Malcolm Jackman, the man whoengineered last years $550 mil-

lion capital raising to save the

company from collapse, is ada-mantit ison theroad torecovery.It is a road that has already

seen him shed the companysunderwriting and insuranceagency business and cut itsshareholding in Rural Bankfrom 50 per cent to 40 per cent,and will now cost about 250jobs to save $45 million.

Yes,20per cent ofour shareregistry moved in one day lastweek, but 20 per cent of ourshare registry was also pur-chased in one day last week,Mr Jackman said.

There are fundamental signsthat we are headed in the rightdirection. Wool and livestockare both good. We are expectingrural real estate to get a kick inthe spring and, like everyone inagribusiness, we are making ad-

justments to manage the chang-ing buying patterns of farmers,

particularly in fertiliser and

agchem.The fertiliser market hasbeen an incredible rollercoasterride, with amazing spikes andthen a real collapse, but it isreturning to more historicallevels now.

Incredibly, this is not theclosestthe companyhas cometodisappearing.

Its nearest brush with deathoccurred when the board of Fos-ters, which finished up owningElders in the spectacular falloutof the Elliot era, seemed set onbreaking up what was a non-core business and selling it off.

However, under then-chiefexecutive Ted Kunkel, Fostersdecided to give Elders a lifelineand launched a public float,which finished oversubscribed,and the pastoral house was back.

Mr Jackman has been withElders for less than two years.

When he arrived, he inheritedwhat could be described as acorporate wreckage from formerCEO Les Wozniczka, who inpartners hip with chairmanStephen Gerlach had takenElders in a dozen directions.

The company was buyinginto markets such as salmon

farming, telecommunicationsand forestry, none of them core

businesses, and none of themsuccessful.

W h e n a s k e d l a s t w e e k whether he felt Mr Gerlach, whohas been a constant through allElders recent troubles, shouldfall on his sword, Mr Jackmansaid the companys chairmanhad already flagged hewas leav-

ing, as soon as a replacementwas found.

When Th e Weekly Timessuggested no one wanted thejob, Mr Jackman said he pre-ferred to say: We have not yetmade an appointment.

We are headed in the rightdirection, we will get the busi-ness back to basics and we willdeliver for our shareholders,

our customers and our staff,Mr Jackman added.

Slow declineof a pastoralicon Pages 24-25

Readyto go:DavidRobertsonsdesignfor an all-terrain-vehicleroll-overprotection systemis yetto beadoptedby manufacturers.

ATV safety row hots upBy PAULSELLARS

ALL-terrain-vehicle manufac-turers have denied claims theyhave their heads in the sandover roll-over protection.

The co-inventor of an ATVsafety structure recently accusedmanufacturers of ignoring evi-dence that roll-over protectionsystems were effective.

QB Industries managing di-rector David Robertson said hisQuadbar invention was helpingto prevent ATV-related injuries

and was now being sold aroundthe world.

Mr Robertson pointed to atrial conducted by the Univer-sity of Southern Queensland lastyear to back up his claims.

The trial found the Quadbarwas effective in reducing thelikelihood of rider injury inATV sideways roll-over andback flip.

(It) should be considered anessential safety feature of ATVsin the workplace and rec-reational environment, the

study found.Mr Robertson s aid ATV

manufacturers were paranoidthat if someone shows roll-overprotection can work, it maycome back to bite them . . . be-cause they havent been fittingthem in the past.

They have their heads in thesand over the issue and they arenot willing to be open to newconcepts, he said.

However, Federal Chamberof Automotive Industries motor-cycle manager Rhys Griffiths

said the chamber had com-missioned its own research intothe Quadbar and various otherROPS.

All the research we havedone at this stage indicates thereare no advantages, and in factthere can be considerable disad-vantage, by fitting any device toa current design ATV, MrGriffiths said.

Anyone who thinks manu-facturers havent already donean enormous amount of workinto this are kidding them-

selves.Mr Griffiths added there had

been a long-running battlebetween QB Industries and themanufacturers.

A s eries of ATV-relateddeaths in Victoria and Tasmaniawas the focus of a long-runningcoronial inquiry between 2002and last year.

The inquiry ended with theCoroner telling manufacturersto never again market or de-scribe them as all-terrain ve-hicles.

WellemploymoreambosBy ANDREW MOLE

REGIONAL Victoria hasbeen promised more than2 0 0 n e w a m b u l a n c ep a ra m e di c s i f t h eCoalition wins the nextelection.

According to Coalitionleader Ted Baillieu theywill be part of a total of340 new paramedics andpatient transport officers which would be thelargest single increase inambulance staff.

He said the Coalitionwould work with Ambu-lance Victoria, communi-ties and paramedics to al-locate the new officers toareas of the state with thegreatest clinical need.

They include: Barwon South West: 44paramedics and six patienttransport officers. G r a m p i a n s : 4 3paramedics and six patienttransport officers. L o d d o n M a l l e e : 4 3paramedics and six patienttransport officers. Hume: 40 paramedicsand six patient transportofficers. G i p p s l a n d : 4 0paramedics and six patienttransport officers.

T h e C o a l it i o n a l s opledged to recruit an ad-ditional 30 patient trans-port officers across re-gional Victoria.

Last month a man wholived less than one blockfrom the Maryboroughambulance station diedafter waiting more than 38minutes for an ambulance.

In the same month afive-year-old Gippslandboy died after waiting morethan an hour for a specialistMICA response unit.


3/5

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24 The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010 weeklytimesnow.com.au

ELDERS CRISIS

Slow decline of

True blue: a common rural sight, theElderslivestocksellingcrew in action.

Elders has been taken tothe financial brink,caught in a maelstromof falling prices,increased competitionand a massiverestructure that missedthe mark, ANDREWMOLE reports

LesWozniczka

THE writing may have been onthe wall as early as 2008 forElders staff, when then chiefoperating officer Mike Guerinremoved individual rubbish binsthroughout the companys Adel-aide head office.

Projected annual saving:$20,000.

But the full extent of theiconic pastoral houses prob-lems were laid bare last weekwhen in the space of just fiveweeks it had turned a projected$55.7 million profit into a lossof between $8 million and$14 million.

The companys immediatereaction to cutting its costs wasto cut Mr Guerin. Along withnetwork chief John Molenaar.

That put $1 million back int h e b a n k, b u t b y i t s o w nadmission the company still hadto find another $44 million insavings and fast.

Which must mean cuttingpeople. While chief executiveofficer Malcolm Jackman haspromised no internal slash andburn, he has flagged manag-ing the companys under-performers to achieve a 10 percent cut.

H e i s a l so r e l y i ng o n ahealthy, and traditional, dose ofnatural attrition. Unfortunatelyfor the company, that may comeabout as the best and brightestare cherry-picked by oppositioncompanies.

Major shareholders also havestarted to jump.

Last week, over two days,IOOF, which only became asubstantial Elders shareholder inFebruary and recently held asm u c h a s6.43 per centof its registry,d u m p e d28.65 millionshares worth$12.07 mil-l i o n . T h a tleaves QBE Insurance as thecompanys only major share-holder, with 8.27 per cent of theregistry.

To cap it all off, Slater &Gordon has announced it ispreparing to launch a classaction related to Elders disclos-ure practices.

Slater & Gordon principallawyer James Higgins had beenapproached by Elders share-holders following the latestdowngrade, which sent Eldersshares into free-fall, decimatingthe agribusiness companysvalue.

Mr Higgins said shareholders

were tired of Elders poorgovernance.Elders history of disclosure

is very poor, he said. Share-holders are understandablyangry and have approached usabout a s hareholder clas s-action.

We will begin the investi-gation immediately.

Litigation funder Compre-hensive Legal Funding LLCwill finance the investigation.

Much also has been made ofRural Banks refusal to helpElders out of its investment inthe forestry managed invest-ment scheme, which also waslosing millions of dollars.

Rural Bankchairman BevW a l t e rs s a i dt h e b a n k , o fwhich Elders isa 40 per cents h a r e h o l d e ra n d

co-founder, did not refuse themoney.

MIS projects are under legaland investment pressures but wewerestill going to do the deal. Inthe end, however, Elders chosenot to meet our conditions, MrWalters said.

We had to be tighter. EvenBendigo Bank, which owns 60per cent of our business, has itsown concerns with its port-folio.

So just where did the wheelsreally fall off for the namewhich has been, in its manyshapes and forms, synonymouswith rural Australia for the past

171 years?Bill Beischer, the man whowas chairman of Elders during

Market could cope without them

Shake-up: Richard Beggs thinks Eldersrural businesscould be stillrestructured.

Richard BeggsNareeb Nareeb studMerino andDohnesGlenthompson

RICHARD Beggs sees Elders ruralservices division as having a key roleto play in the future of agriculturalAustralia, but has doubts it will beable to go the distance.

I would be pretty sure the ruralbusiness is good and profitable, it isjust the other legs under the tableletting them down, he said.

From where I am sitting, it lookslike they are going bust, even thoughthe rural business could be restruc-tured to maintain its role in the mar-ket.

We still do a bit with them butthere is enough competition now toget by without them, although if theydid go it would leave only one majorplayer in Landmark.

Mr Beggs said the industry alsoowed Elders for some of its pioneer-ing work, such as taking on AWEXfor the benefit of all woolgrowers.

But, as a client, I still feel like anumber; their staff move around so

much it is getting harder to have agood relationship with an Eldersbloke, he said.

Loss of major firmwould be damaging

Toughtimes:AndrewWeidemannbelieves othercompanies maysuffera similar fateto Elders.

Andrew WeidemannGrain growerRupanyup

ANDREW Weidemann was at lastweeks Victorian Farmers Federationconference where he heard Elders man-aging director Malcolm Jackman speak.

He seemed very upbeat about thebusiness, and he should know what isgoing on, Mr Weidemann said.

Producers want as much compe-

tition as possible so it would be verydis appointing to los e s omething

of the stature of Elders.The work they are doing in grains

is good, more in line with what themarket wants, but I think around myarea they have lost focus and Rodwellsseems to have become the majorplayer.

Mr Weidemann also felt Elders was,to a degree, a victim of circumstance.

The supply chain for agriculturalproducts is volatile, and anyone couldbe in the same position as Elders very

quickly. I am sure they wont bealoneinthis over the coming months.


4/5

weeklytimesnow.com.au The Weekly Times, June 30, 2010 25

Chop n change

Merry-go-round: RichardMcFarlaneno longeruses Eldersbecause of itsconstantly changingstaff.

Richard McFarlaneBeef cattle and croppingWellington LodgeWellington via Tailem Bend, SA

RICHARD McFarlane is a sixth-generation farmer and runs a majorAngus commercial beef herd and crop-ping enterprise.

He said his business used to doeverything through Elders, buttoday hardly uses the company, havingswitched to another for merchandiseand a new livestock agency SpenceDix and Co for its cattle.

The big difference for us is theguys at Spence Dix are young, enthusi-

astic and they are going to be here for awhile, Mr McFarlane said.

Murray Bridge was our Eldersbranch, but the staff simply kept chang-ing . . . the good guys were obviouslyidentified and moved to bigger rolesbut we never seemed to deal with thesame person for long.

Spence Dix and Co are ex Eldersguys who have set up on their own andwe know we are going to be able tobuild a long-term relationship.

That said, there is a lot of historyand emotion surrounding Elders and itwould be a shame to see them fall apart

but I dont think it will have any impacton our business.

ELDERS CRISIS

a pastoral icon

New breed: Eldersboss Malcolm Jackman (left), atthe VictorianFarmersFederationsannualgeneralmeeting last week, looksto thefuture.

the Alan Newman-led Futurisyears in the 1990s, is in nodoubt.Elders is a people business,he said. Alan Newman under-stood that, and understood peo-ple. But the board and the man-agement of Elders have lost theplot.

M r B e i s c h e r s u g g e s t e ddecisions by Les Wozniczka(who succeeded Mr Newman asFuturis CEO) and the boardu n d e r c h a i r m a n S t e p h e nGerlach to diversify the busi-ness laid the foundation for itsundoing.

Stephen (Gerlach) is a goodAdelaide man, but neither henor Wozniczka understood thebusiness. It was not companiesthey were dealing with, it waspeople, Mr Beischer said.

But their biggest mistakewas getting rid of Elders manag-

ing director Greg Hunt.When Mr Wozniczka pushed

Mr Hunt out the door in mid-2007, the company had justrecorded a $100 million-plusprofit. Within weeks, Elders notonly had no managing director,it was also without a chief finan-cial officer, chief operating offi-cer, strategy chief and boss inAsia. Finance chief Rick Moodycompleted the head office routwhen he walked out in supportof Mr Hunt.

Greg knew Elders insideout, Mr Beischer said. Heunderstood the business at everyfacet, he knew all the staff andhe knew the clients how theythought and what they wantedand needed.

I would question anyonecoming in to match that know-ledge. We had built a rural ser-vices company with a goodproduct range and committedstaff and had a business valued

at more than $1 billion a farcry from where it stands now.

M r J a c k m a n h a s m ysympathies. He has been leftwith a big job, not of his mak-ing, to do. When Mr Hunt wasp u s h e d , M r W o z n i c z k aexplained to business media hewas looking for fresh blood.

When also asked why anychange would be made, con-sidering the strides the ruralbusiness was making under MrH u n t s m a n a g e m e n t, t h eresponse was Steve Waughscored 100 runs in his last Test.

But the question now upper-most in the minds of staff, busi-ness partners and clients, is what

happens next?Michael Hughes, from Ord

Minnett, has publicly ques-tioned Malcolm Jackman overthe plan to cut staff, suggestingit may be a threat to the cus-tomer experience. He was alsoconcerned Elders was develop-ing a reputation for a companythat only had bad news to de-liver.

Jonathon Snape, from South-ern Cross Equities, expressedthe broking industrys alarmthat news of the massive profitturnaround came so suddenlyand so late.

He has still listed Elders as aspeculative buy and said hewould not do that unless hethought the business could beturned around. But he said a lotdepended now on the 2011 sea-son.

BBYs John Welsh has beenharsher, listing Elders with anunderperform recommen-

dation. He said last weeksdowngrade was the companys

ninth in just two years andwith poor company fundamen-tals we believe Elders will findit difficult to trade out of itsproblems.

However, Mr Jackman, whois now the companys managingdirector and the man who hasput his personal reputation onthe line in being able to turn itaround, remains unshakeable.

We intend to manage outthe bottom decile to make thesavings we need, rather thantake a machine gun to the busi-ness, Mr Jackman said.

Right now, agriculture itselfis being res tructured withchanging buying patterns, pres-sures such as the tighter cattlemarket into Indonesia, a movefrom the recognised brandedproducts to lower-cost generics.

But I am going to kick thisthing to make it work and I will

make more friends than I willlose on the way through.

Mr Jackmans assessment ofchanges within the industry ringtrue and are being reflected inother players and their shareprices, with the market nowexpecting more profit reviews.

He also has a fundamentalbelief that 90 per cent of thecompanys farm-services busi-ness is done at the farm gate, onthe phone or online, somethingwhich seemed to escape hisimmediate predecessors.

Newman was a buyer andseller and knew what he wasdoing, but Les (Wozniczka) wasa buyer, and a buyer of bits, andnot good at managing any ofthem, he said.

Former chief operating offi-cer Mike Guerin, who workedw i t h g l o b a l c o n s u l t a n c yMcKins ey to conceive theregional structure, tried to takeElders into the future.

It was a management stylethat the company tried in theearly 1990s.

Bureaucracy and costs blewout and Elders was forced toclose 100 branches and removemore than 1000 people from thebusiness. You cant get anycloser to your customers thanthrough your branch managers.

Historically, these peopleknow their customers well, andtailor their products and servicesto suit the needs of their clients.

What Mr Jackman is suggest-ing with his hands-on approachis that he is going to cut throughanything between him and hisown troops at the coalface, treatthem as customers and deliverwhat they want and need.

There would be millions tosave overnight if the current20-region structure was pulledback to 10, and pulling it backfurther would compound thesavings. That model has alreadybeen proved and not that longago. Perhaps its destiny is bestsummed up by a senior formerElders manager, who wants toget the rural business awayfrom corporate raiders, bankersand management consultantswho believe they can inject theirmanagement structures andmodels and stuff up a per-fectly good business, whichdespite the recent attempts byWozniczka and Guerin, hasmanaged to survive 171 years.

Our farming communitydeserves to have at least onestrong Australian agribusinessthats not just about floggingfertiliser and chemicals butabout showing leadership anddoing a better job for Australias

farmers, he said. What bettername than Elders?


5/5

weeklytimesnow.com.au The Weekly Times, July 7, 2010 15

JapanFMDon thewaneTHE worst of the latestFoot and Mouth Diseaseoutbreak in Japan appearsto be over.

T h e u n p r e ce d e n t e dF M D o u t b r e ak i n t h eMiyazaki region has seen1 8 8 , 75 3 a n i m a ls 153,676 pigs and 35,019cattle destroyed sinceApril 20, according to theWorld Organisation ofAnimal Health.

Since the first reportedcase in April there havebeen 290 outbreaks ofFMD recorded with theWOAH.

Movement restrictionsin the infected areas aregradually being removed.R e s t ri c t i o ns o n s t o c k movement in the Miyazakiregion will be lifted nextweek, provided no furtherFMD cases are reported. Ithas been almost a monthsince the last case wasfound on June 18.

The self-imposed exportban on all beef is still inplace except to Hong Kongand Macau.

There has been no evi-dence so farto confirmthatthe outbreak has affectedbeef consumption, or beefsupplies in Japan.

Australian exports ofbeef into Japan have notbeen affected. Accordingto Meat and LivestockAustralia, last year theMiyazaki region was thethird-largest supplier ofbeef cattle within Japan,accounting for about 15per cent of all Wagyucalves to the nations lotfeeders.

MATILDA ABEY

Elders leaky boat

to ride out storm

Elders chief MalcolmJackman is confidentthe company can stayafloat, writesANDREW MOLE

Leading theway: EldersMalcolmJackman seespotentialinfinding apartner throughpension fundsorAsianpaperhouses.

MALCOLM Jackman says 15years in the New Zealand navywas about as far as anyone inthis corner of the world couldget from the Australian bush.

Which is why the man whonow has his hand firmly on thewheel of HMAS Elders openlydeclares he brings no know-ledge of the grassroots businessto his role as the chief executiveofficer.

How wrong he is.E l d e r s b e g a n i t s p r o u d

171-year history as a shippingline and built businesses hereto fill its ships and send themback to England.

As the last man left standingon the bridge after former cap-tains Mike Guerin and JohnMolenaar walked the plank, MrJackman had better rememberhis lessons about what to do on asinking ship.

At the weekend, Mr Jackmanrefused to consider the goodship Elders had been holed be-low the waterline.

Even though there is now justone layer of management be-tween him and the farm gate, MrJackman is adamant his com-mand does not require him to besticking his nose in at branchlevel.

Yes, I will be out there, asoften as I can, talking with staff,listening to them and makingsure they know what I am doingw i t h t h e i r c o m pa n y, M rJackman said.

But it is not my role to runthe business, my expertise is torun the company. Thats what Iwas brought here to do andnothing has changed. I am just alot closer to the front line.

I dont care what people aresaying, they do not know whatis happening inside the com-pany and I can tell you I am veryconfident.

So confident that he hasopened his own wallet and pur-chased 91,500 shares in the

company at an average of37.8 cents.

He said a series of meetingsheld last week with the principalplayers in the syndicate of banksbehind the business showedthere was nothing wrong withElders.

No liquidity issues, no sig-nificant change in the businessprofile.

After working through ourcash projections and detailingour business plan, the banks re-affirmed their support on Thurs-day, Mr Jackman said.

And in all last weeks drama,he said the market and thedoomsayers missed, or chose to

overlook, some of the groupsgood news.

Its auto divis ion will bespared the 10 per cent cut therest of the business is about tosuffer.

Rather, it will be putting peo-ple on because the auto marketis picking up steam.

But that is where the goodnews ends.

Elders forestry division is inan ever-deepening mess. It start-ed off forecasting a $45 millionprofit and in the end, it struggledto $1.6 million.

But not even that can faze thecaptain.

He is exploring different

models and sees potential infinding a partner through pen-sion funds or possibly Asianpaper houses.

Mr Jackman said, when theproverbial manure hit the fan as the companys share priceplummeted last month thebig soul-searching questionhe asked himself and colleagueswas is there a real businessthere?

In the first eight months ofthe year, we handled 300,000bales of wool, 10 per cent of thenational grain harvest, marketed$1.4 billion worth of livestock and all through a network ofmore than 400 branches, he

said. Clearly, we are a realbusiness with a real place.

But Mr Jackman agreed hewas still working out the futureof that real business.

The days of staff whose bloodran Elders red are over.

Elders might be bleedingright now, but it is bleeding redink on the books, which MrJackman said could also befixed. People say I am justspinning it, but they do notknow how good our team is,he said. Thats why my num-ber is available to everyone,staff, shareholders, bankers andmedia. If you have got a ques-tion, or a problem, just ask me.

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