Ravensdown CEO Rodney Green's job hangs on a transparency thread

Farmgirl, unlike the Radio Network, has managed to escape the bullying clutches of the CEO of Ravensdown thus far and has requested a head to head discussion through the radio forum with Rodney Green but has heard nothing yet.

It is very serious and alarming when shareholders seem to be muzzled by the head of a co-operative and are not being allowed to ask the questions that need to be asked at this point of time.

What is even more alarming is that Farmgirl has received further serious allegations against the CEO and his Board regarding some private dealings that shareholders have no idea about.

This company appears to be no longer transparent and the head of it has far too much power and seemingly a weak or frightened Board.

Farmgirl wants Mr Green to front up and answer these questions:

1 Did Ravensdown have a large cash deficit in last year's accounts from operating activities - that actually they didn't have a $40 million profit but a $40 million loss - it only looks that way due to a change of accounting standards and the favourable revaluation of foreign exchange contracts?
2 Were last year's rebates paid from borrowing, not actual profit?
3 That borrowing to pay rebates is a hugely risky venture and not one that shareholders are aware of?
4 That under these current conditions and the fact that Ravensdown is not in great shape the venture into Australia could only be construed as risky?

4a That the directors may not have been fully aware of Ravensdown's financial situation

prior to its move into Australia?
5 Have they made any million dollar plus settlements out of court in the past three years?

6 Are shareholders aware of what might have been paid via settlement out of court in the past

three years?

7 How on earth can Ravensdown be called a co-operative if its shareholders are ill informed and then threatened should they choose to ask questions?

If Farmgirl and other concerned shareholders are right about the situation with Ravnesdown, then it's time all of us did something about it, took back control of the co-operative and got rid of the rot.

This is not defamation Rodney, this is our right as concerned shareholders to publicly voice our view.

Having worked in agricultural newspapers, and knowing how companies can threaten to pull big advertising budgets if anything negative is written about them, this blog becomes vitally important.

Please, share your views, get in contact with Farmgirl if need be and keep asking these questions of your directors until you get the answers clarified.

We will not be silenced, nor will investigations be dismissed.

Shareholders should be concerned about Ravensdown...

Farmgirl wants to share some important comments passed on to her by a follower of the blog.

"Have you seen the latest Ravensdown Hot off the Press on their web site.What has been said about having to make profits, banking covenants,pressure to retain bank funding facilities, selling foreign exchange,having to restructure etc is just the tip of the iceberg. No wonder they have the pressure on (you) not to let their true financial position be know to shareholders, but the truth will come sooner or later especially with this Australian nonsense and the current banking squeeze.

In the market Ballance are deliberately squeezing them on prices. Ballance set the price and Ravensdown follow a few days later at about the same level. But with sales back and profits and cashflow required to satisfy their banks they desperately need higher prices in New Zealand -they will never achieve this.

This is a deliberate tactic by Ballance - they want a weaker and weaker Ravensdown in the market in order to grow their own market share and improve operational capacities.

Rodney Green said some time ago a 50:50market was not sustainable and he would grow Ravensdown to be 20% larger than the number two in the market. Ballance are effectively following his advice.

The Australian venture and non fertiliser activities is the only way Green can boast that he has been successful and grown Ravensdown - that is his driving force and the force that dominates Ravensdown's activities - but at what cost - he was not in the industry when other misguided fertiliser co-op's collapsed.

Their accounts may just be legal - but their presentations and PR in explaining their true position are on very thin ice - no doubt they will blame the current economic conditions - but their problems are more fundamental and getting to be terminal."

Tah tah tah tah...and the Smooth Operator of the Week Award must go to....Ravensdown CEO Rodney Green

Hark the herald angels sing...no it's not a Christmas angel...it's Rodders in all his preened public relations finery in Ashburton this morning keen to unsoap his mouth from the recent gaffes he made in the media when he ignored the existence of the New Zealand arable industry and it's importance to the Ravensdown coffers. (see post further down)

Alas Farmgirl hears there was no mention of that...he'd cleaned up his act and polished his lingo to perfection particularly when it came to the point of the meeting - why Ravensdown continues to be in the PKE market when it disadvantages the arable shareholders he hadn't realised existed until lately.

Ravensdown imported 90 000 tonnes of PKE this year and have sold around 50 000 and apparently on this basis cropping clients should be relishing the opportunity to add a meagre 5500 tonnes to the mix.

5500 tonnes? In arable lingo that's about five small farms that might benefit from the market but hey Mr Green and his cohorts reckon this could be a fantastic opportunity for us poor dumb cereal farmers. Apparently in this recession Ravensdown alone will convince the cash strapped North Island dairy farmers of the poor nutritional content of PKE when they sell it to them and then these same dairy farmers will come back, singing hallelujah you were right Rodney, and purchase bucket loads of the PKE barley mix while we celebrate by emptying our silos down here.

Yeah right!

And then of course Farmgirl understands there were the veiled threats that the Australian Barley Board (ABB) who has recently purchased plant in Hornby would get in on the act and might not put New Zealand barley in their mix. We should fear the Australians and trust Ravensdown was the message. But hold on...up until last week Rodney said it was the Australians that were adding a third commodity group to the Ravensdown market in arable farming, so who should we fear here?

In reality Ravensdown is all PR fluff. Nothing has changed. If the PKE barley market is a goer what's to stop RD1 getting on board anyway? The fact that they're not doing the same thing proves that there is room for doubt as to whether dairy farmers will really buy the more expensive supplement.

Yet again Ravensdown have misjudged the feeling in the arable sector. They should not be in the PKE market at all and no amount of wing preening by Rodney Green will change that.

Ravensdown CEO Rodney Green insults arable/horticulture farmers in further slight to the sector

Well for those of you that put on a good $100 000 grand plus of Ravensdown fertiliser each year, of which there are many in Canterbury, you can be assured that your 'friendly' farming co-operative does not value your business at all.

In fact you don't exist...but you already knew that when they decided to ignore the sector and enter the palm kernel market.

But yesterday in the New Zealand Farmer's Weekly what we all knew was confirmed when Ravensdown chief executive Rodney Green ignored the presence of a New Zealand arable sector.

"Thank goodness for Western Australia," he brayed, when talking about the purchase of United Farmers last year, because being nearly all arable farming it apparently brought in a third commodity group to the co-operative, behind dairying and the sheep/beef sector.

Hello Rodders...time to come investigate all the huge spud, onion, processed vegetable, cereal and specialist seed operations that prop up your balance sheet each year because apparently you don't think they exist.

In fact you told Alan Williams that in recent years Ravensdown business has changed from its traditional sheep and beef farmer base to a broadly 50/50 split between sheep/beef and dairying. There was no mention of the arable/horticulture sector.

What an insult and it shows why the arable sector shareholding is being largely ignored by the co-operative. Why on earth do we persist with a co-operative when they do not even value or acknowledge our business?

I know of another fertiliser business that is only too keen to pick us up. May-be it's only when we pull out all the tonnages we put through that Ravensdown and Rodney Green might notice the hole in the balance sheet we were filling.