ESPERANCE graingrower Nils Blumann is claiming a successful result from the series of independent CBH shareholder meetings he organised and held throughout WA last week.
Mr Blumann will now take forward a motion to the CBH Board, with confidence, asking it to de-mutualise the company.
He wants immediate action taken to address CBH's structural reform, to ensure it can handle looming competition in the deregulated grains market.
The motion was voted on overwhelmingly by 122 of the 143 eligible grower shareholders, who attended the meetings in Geraldton, Merredin, Katanning and Esperance.
Mr Blumann said he was extremely disappointed by the CBH Board's decision to recommend all directors not attend the meetings.
He said CBH shareholders had made it very clear at the meetings that they wanted to see the Board address structure as a core priority.
Mr Blumann said the meetings were an educational exercise that were designed to present the facts on CBH's current position in the grains industry, and the challenges it faced to survive.
He said seven shareholders abstained from the vote, but some of them came to the meetings as "die hard co-operative supporters" and changed their minds.
Mr Blumann said they changed their position after hearing his presentation, and that of ABB director Ross Johns, who outlined the journey taken by ABB, which started as a co-operative and became a privately listed company that merged with Canadian grains giant Viterra earlier this month.
Read the full story in this week's Farm Weekly.
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