REGINA – All shareholders of a restructured Saskatchewan Wheat Pool are created equal, at least when it comes to getting financial information about the company.
That means some changes in how delegates and farmer-members find out about what’s going on in their grain-handling company.
And it will also mean less consultation with delegates in running the business side of the pool, says chief executive officer Don Loewen.
“The implementation of the broad corporate plans you help develop will have to occur much more rapidly and with less step-by-step disclosure and consultation with this body,” he told delegates attending the pool’s annual meeting last week.
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“You will set the parameters and the direction but then you must allow your management team to implement the specifics of the plan.”
In an interview later, Loewen said that doesn’t mean delegates are losing control of the company.
Some things won’t change
“In talking about direction and strategic things of that nature that delegates have always done, and in providing input and talking about service issues and serving the customer properly, those things will continue as they always have.”
A special closed session was held during the meeting to talk about the future role for delegates in a publicly traded Saskatchewan pool.
One major difference will be the ability of delegates to get detailed financial information about the pool.
The company will release quarterly financial reports to all shareholders simultaneously, both the farmers owning Class A voting shares and the outside investors owning Class B non-voting shares.
That will mean an end to the practice of providing monthly updates to delegates and through them to the general membership.
“All shareholders have to be treated equally,” said Loewen. “We’ll have to be sensitive that any information that you release is done quarterly to all shareholders at the same time, because certain strategic information will affect the share value of the company.”
As a result, he said, the interaction between the company’s board and management and the delegates will be more controlled in the future.
Loewen also told delegates that once the pool is selling shares to the public, the company’s business decisions will be coming under scrutiny from a whole new group of people.
External shareholders, including employees, will be looking primarily for an increase in the share value. And farmer-members may look at the pool with “a new set of expectations.”
Asked later if that means the share value will become the dominating factor in pool business and policy decisions, Loewen said the pool has always made decisions with an eye on the bottom line.
“The reality is we have to create shareholder wealth and shareholder return to all members of Sask Pool,” he said.
In previous years, the pool has sometimes made decisions that didn’t seem to directly benefit the bottom line, such as holding handling tariffs below costs for several years running.
Asked if that kind of decision could be made in a publicly traded pool, Loewen gave a qualified yes.
“If we can drive our costs down and still produce the kind of bottom line the company needs, certainly,” he said, adding that low tariffs can be a competitive advantage by “putting the screws on competitors.”
