FORMER ABB Grain Managing Director Michael Iwaniw has contacted Farm Weekly to clarify comments he made at the Australian Grains Conference in Melbourne last year.
Co-operative supporters have been using the comments to support their claims at this year’s CBH director elections.
At the AGIC, Mr Iwaniw announced his retirement after 40 years in the Australian grains industry, saying one of his biggest career regrets was as not being able to witness a merger between his company and CBH.
As reported in Farm Weekly at the time, Mr Iwaniw said he was disappointed CBH did not get its act together in time to have the commercial structure it needed to form the merger.
His comments also came as ABB Grain was on the verge of entering a vote to merge with Canadian agri-business giant, Viterra.
He said CBH had “no glaring need to change its current structure, and should stay a co-operative until its nose bleeds”.
"They are an excellent company and as you know they are a co-operative,” he said.
"People say to me they have to change, but in my view, I don't think they have to change.
"They are a really good company; they have good assets, they have good management, and they can stay that way.
"There's no glaring need for that company to change from a co-op, but it will change if it wants to.
"My economic rationale is that people are saying CBH should do this and CBH should do that, but it's a decision of their board and their stakeholders, it's not my decision.
"They can exist in that form for as long as they want to, provided they are a good cooperative.”
However, Mr Iwaniw contacted Farm Weekly last Monday, to clarify his comments.
“In my presentation at the Australian Grain Conference in Melbourne I never stated that CBH should remain a co-operative but said they could,” he said.
“I added that CBH's structure was a matter for WA grain growers to determine.
“My talk included a presentation of how ABB Grain grew from a Statutory Authority with capital of $8million to an ASX top100 company with a value of $1.6 billion and the value this delivered to South Australian and Victorian growers.”
Mr Iwaniw said he did not seek to clarify his comments at the time, because he retired that week and then went on holidays.
He said he did not want to become involved in the CBH elections.
“It’s just not something I would say,” he said.
“CBH can change their structure,” he said.
“It’s their choice.
“There are a number of benefits of being a publicly listed company and CBH shareholders have to weigh them up.
“That’s a decision growers have to make and the more informed the decision is the better and the less emotional that decision is the better.
“I don’t regret what ABB have done.
“All decisions ABB made were democratic.”
Mr Iwaniw said he wasn’t willing to visit WA and meet with growers to discuss company structures.
* Read more about the 2010 CBH director elections in this week's Farm Weekly.
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