By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor
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Thursday 15th November 2001 |
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The company just completed a $50 million cap note issue in February. It says that capital raising was very successful, with a number of large volume applications scaled back due to oversubscriptions.
CEO, John Loughlin, says both the the February Capital Notes issue and the company's NZSE listing have helped to overcome some of the historic apathy toward the industry.
"The way in which New Zealand's agri-business sector underpins the national economy has never been more evident.
"Richmond is the major player in the export meat business, and we have made some advance in terms of telling the Richmond story, and the new industry story to a wide cross-section of investors.
Mr Loughlin says the company used the cash from the February Capital Notes to invest in high pay-back developments at its Oringi (lamb), Pacific (beef) and Te Kauwhata (deer) processing plants.
It was also used to repay an earlier subordinated bond issue made in 1996 and provided additional working capital at peak times of the year, moderating the impact of record livestock prices.
The company says the new issue will significantly improve the company's balance sheet strength and lengthen the maturity profile of the existing funding base.
"Richmond's strategy for value-creation and margin growth is to take our products deeper in the marketplace and closer to end-users," says chairman Sam Robinson.
"This also requires terms of trade over and above those necessary for commodity operations. Longer term it also requires continuing investment in high quality facilities and new processing technologies."
The company will seek shareholder approval for the new capital note offer at its AGM in December.
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