Fertiliser merger

Western Australia’s third largest fertiliser company has announced it will merge with New Zealand’s largest fertiliser supplier.

United Farmers Co-operative has announced a merger with Ravensdown Fertiliser Cooperative Limited. The deal is expected to firm up UFC’s future in West Australia following the local co-operative’s two tough seasons which have also seen fertiliser prices double.

UFC is WA’s third-largest fertiliser supplier with 15% of the market, behind CSBP’s 60% and Summit’s 25% marketshare.

The merger will commit UFC to a trans-Tasman cooperative link with a partner that boasts 30,000 members and more than 1.5 million tonnes of fertiliser sales each year. UFC is expected to put the proposal to a shareholders’ vote later this year with some details about the deal yet to be finalised.

Agreement has been reached to keep the UFC name to assist the development of Ravensdown’s co-operative model in the Australian agricultural market.

Under the merger participating UFC members will be able to realise their equity interest in UFC through shares in a significantly larger cooperative group.

UFC said the merger with Ravensdown was an obvious choice after a number of alternative options were considered.

UFC chairman Bowe Wilson has said that the deal gave UFC the ability to fast track many of its growth plans.