[Diggers350] Cargill reaps windfall amongst food speculation bonanza

[ilyan]

THis is a legal criminal action by Cargill.   The law can do nothing 
about it.    Do the Rioters happen to be informed of that?    Any 
suggestions how their activities might be better directed to make 
Cargill sick of the thought of speculating to drive up food prices?
ILyan


On 10/08/2011 15:17, mark at tlio.org.uk wrote:
>
>
> Note also earlier report posted on this list 9 days ago revealing that
> "Cargill recently purchased all British wheat stocks in
> an‘unprecedented’ purchase"
> Url ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diggers350/message/3592
>
> Record earnings from Cargill on back of crop disruptions
>
> By Javier Blas, Commodities Editor
> FT, August 9, 2011
> Ref:
> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c80dfee-c293-11e0-9ede-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1UdFIZvH2
>
> Cargill reported its best year on Tuesday, as its profits breached
> $4bn on the back of disruptions to global food supplies.
>
> The world’s biggest agricultural trader said its net profit rose to
> $4.24bn in the year to May, compared with a previous record of $3.95bn
> in 2007-08, and an increase of 63 per cent compared with the $2.6bn
> earned last year.
>
> The Minnesota-based company is controlled by 80 members of the Cargill
> and MacMillan families descendants of William Wallace Cargill, who
> founded the trading house in 1865. The company does not disclose its
> dividends policy to the families, but according to a report last
> December by Moody’s Investors Service, it limits pay-outs to 20 per
> cent of trailing two-year earnings.
>
> The record profit highlights the big margins in the sector led by
> Cargill, which rose to prominence in the 2007-08 food crisis, when
> agricultural commodities prices hit all-time highs. Cargill and its
> main competitors, including ADM, Bunge and France’s Louis Dreyfus are
> known in the industry as “ABCD” and together dominate global flows of
> agricultural commodities.
>
> Cargill benefited from disruptions in global grain trading over the
> past year. Russia imposed an export ban on wheat and barley last
> summer after a drought devastated its crop. Months later, as unrest
> gathered in the Middle East, countries from Algeria to Saudi Arabia
> announced extraordinary purchases of wheat. Stockpiling by governments
> combined with strong demand in emerging markets and disappointing
> crops drove the prices of key agricultural commodities higher.
>
> Sergio Rial, chief financial officer at Cargill, told the Financial
> Times the trading house had yet to see a slowdown in agricultural
> commodities demand, but warned about economic growth in the developing
> world.
>
> “As we have seen in China and a number developing countries
> controlling inflation, it is possible that the growth path of the
> so-called Brics may slowdown,” he said.
>
> The company is unlikely to repeat its record profitability anytime
> soon, after it spun off earlier this year its 64 per cent stake in
> Mosaic, the fertiliser producer, in a $24bn deal to satisfy a
> shareholder who wanted to cash out. The deal closed in May.
>
> The details of its complex deal to spin off Mosaic allowed outsiders
> to calculate the value of the trading house for the first time, with
> bankers putting it at about $50bn.
>
> Mr Rial insisted that Cargill did not have any plans to float it
> shares. “Public markets are not the only way of value creation,” he
> said.
>
> Glencore, the world’s largest commodities trader, raised about $10bn
> earlier this year in an initial public offering in London and Hong
> Kong.
>
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20110811/f040d170/attachment.html>