SAPUTO chief executive Lino Saputo Jnr and his vice-president Louis-Philippe Carriere will take seats on a reduced Warrnambool Cheese and Butter (WCB) board as the Canadian company asserts its control of Australia’s oldest dairy.
After a lengthy $500 million takeover battle for control of WCB, Saputo bested rivals Bega Cheese and Murray Goulburn, securing 87.92 per cent of the Victorian dairy group in February.
In a statement to the ASX on Monday WCB said Saputo has requested «a number of modifications to the company’s constitution to, among other things, allow a restructure of the WCB board».
At WCB’s general meeting on May 9 all current directors and associate members will resign and, in a move that may concern WCB’s dairy farmer suppliers, the requirement to have nine directors and four supplier directors will be removed.
Alongside the Saputo executives, current WCB chairman Terry Richardson and WCB directors Bruce Vallance and Neville Fielke will stand for election in May. Chief executive officer David Lord will remain in the CEO chair.
«We talked about this [with Saputo] a long time ago. Naturally the role of the board will change,» Mr Richardson said. «They’ve made it very clear that it is business as usual from David Lord’s level down.»
Source:Queensland Country Life