Angry shareholders confronted the board of loss-making fledgling firm NZ Farming Systems Uruguay wondering if they were ever going to see the returns they were promised reports Stuff. At the company's annual general meeting in Auckland yesterday, shareholders, many of them farmers, grilled directors and management about the firm's farming practices and intentions in Uruguay. Chairman Keith Smith said he was confident it would recover due to a recent increase in dairy prices, performance of pasture under irrigation and development of the Uruguayan farming talent. The beleaguered PGG Wrightson subsidiary predicted a return on capital four times higher than the NZ average in its 2007 prospectus. But since then it has had consecutive losses, and now says it will not break even until 2011. Buoyed by the dairy boom, the firm bought more land than it had planned to in its first 18 months for conversion to NZ -style pasture-based dairy farms. Then came the credit crunch, milk prices collapsed, and Uruguay was hit by a one-in-30-year drought in the last financial year, which led to significantly lower milk production and higher irrigation costs. And Silver Fern Farms, sold its 10 million shares in PGG Wrightson, taking advantage of the hoopla around Agria's imminent arrival on Wrightson's register. SFF confirmed today it had sold its tranche of 10 million shares in PGG Wrightson at between 73 cent and79 cents per share reports Scoop. It walks away with a 41% loss on the stake when compared to the $1.20 price of Wrightson in April, when the co-op received the 10 million shares in part settlement of their failed merger. Silver Fern's own shares debut on the Unlisted share platform on Oct. 27, the first time members of the public have been able to buy the stock. The meat co-op last week completed its offer for its farmers to exchange shares and subscribe to more. The new capital raised was about $21 million as of the closing date, missing the hoped-for $30 million to $128 million.
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