Shareholders will decide Friday if one of Western Canada’s first and largest farmer-owned grain terminals will be sold.
The board of directors at Weyburn Inland Terminal (WIT) near Weyburn, Sask., is recommending to shareholders that all outstanding shares in the company be sold to Winnipeg-based grain company Parrish & Heimbecker for $95 million, or $17.25 per outstanding share.
The proposed sale must be approved by two-thirds of the company’s shareholders.
WIT has 1,500 shareholders who own 5.5 million outstanding common shares.
WIT’s assets include a 105,000 tonne concrete grain terminal at Weyburn, fertilizer and farm input retail operations and a specialty crop processing and marketing firm near Sedley, Sask.
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WIT also has a controlling interest in NorAmera BioEnergy Corp., an ethanol production facility in Weyburn.
The proposed sale of the company has sparked a dispute among shareholders who would like to sell WIT and others who would like farmers to continue owning the facility.
WIT president Claude Carles has estimated that producers hold 40 percent of the company’s shares.
Institutional investors own another 10 percent, and the remainder are held by businesses and individual investors who do not grow grain.
