Agribusiness

Shares in sandalwood company Quintis have gone into a trading halt, after horrific losses last week including a nearly 36 per cent fall on Friday.

SPECIAL REPORT: Paul Holmes a Court plans for Margaret River’s oldest winery may not come to fruition in his lifetime.

SPECIAL REPORT: Fogarty Wine Group has built its brand over two decades to top the list of WA’s major producers.

SPECIAL REPORT: After a gruelling decade, even a desultory 2016-17 summer could not dampen the growing enthusiasm among WA winemakers.

Poultry producer Ingham’s Chicken will invest more than $70 million to build a new feed mill near Muchea as part of a plan to grow production volumes in Western Australia.

Good summer crop conditions and record livestock and wool prices have helped agribusiness Elders lift its first-half profit by 56 per cent and flag the resumption of dividend payments this year.

Ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P have downgraded the debt of agribusiness Qunitis, while private equity fund Black Rock revealed it had taken a 5.1 per cent stake in the company.

Shares in sandalwood supplier Quintis were down 44 per cent today after the company admitted it had lost a contract supplying Nestle five months ago, the second issue relating to a contract this year.

PHOTO ESSAY: Workers from Ocean Grown Abalone will install 5,000 concrete habitats, or Abitats, at Augusta during the next 18 months as part of anexpansion of the company’s aquaculture business.

The aquaculture and fisheries industries are both attracting investor interest as businesses float significant growth plans.

Sandalwood producer Quintis has negotiated a second deferral of an option agreement that could see it having to pay nearly $34 million to buy back 400 hectares of plantations, as the company confirmed it was in advanced negotiations with a possible replacement for a key Chinese customer.

Former Australian Wheat Board chairman Trevor Flugge has been fined $50,000 and barred from managing corporations for five years, after he was convicted in December of breaching his duties as a director while the company was making questionable payments to the government of Iraq.

Loss-making livestock exporter Wellard is undertaking a share placement and entitlement offer as part of a $52 million capital raising it hopes will allow it to exploit a predicted improvement in trading conditions.

CBH Group chief executive Andrew Crane is stepping down from the role after eight years at the helm of Australia's largest grain exporter, with the group to immediately begin a search for his successor.

The competition watchdog is concerned that the proposed takeover of Bibra Lake-based wheat and barley seed breeder InterGrain by Australian Grain Technologies could substantially lessen competition in the barley seeds sector.

Former BHP Billiton executive Julius Matthys has been named interim chief executive of Quintis, after Frank Wilson resigned on Tuesday to plot a takeover of the Indian sandalwood producer.

An extraordinary twist has emerged in the Quintis saga, with founder and managing director Frank Wilson resigning to work with an unnamed overseas corporation that is planning a takeover proposal of the Perth-based Indian sandalwood producer.

Quintis temporarily put the brakes on its falling share price by entering into a trading halt this morning, as it compiled a lengthy response to queries raised by the ASX.

Agribusiness consultancy Kalyx Australia will pursue growth opportunities in horticulture research following its recent merger with Peracto WA, the local franchise of the Tasmania-based Peracto research brand.

Freshly renamed Indian sandalwood producer Quintis has suffered another share price slide, prompting a query from the ASX, following short-seller Glaucus Research Group’s scathing report into the Nedlands-based business yesterday.

Indian sandalwood producer TFS Corporation has blasted US-based short-seller Glaucus Research Group for a scathing report which accused the Perth company of operating a Ponzi-like business structure.

Murdoch University has been named among 42 organisations across Australia charged with establishing a consortium to boost the nation’s agricultural sector.

A Hong Kong-based company has joined the share register of live export business Wellard International just days after Holmes a Court family entity Heytesbury Holdings took a stake.

The investment vehicle of Pakistani meat producer Tariq Butt has sold its remaining 9.5 per cent stake in Wellard to private company Heytesbury, at a premium to the listed agribusiness’s recent trading price.

Livestock agribusiness Wellard has slashed its first-half loss and expects to post a profit in the 2017-18 financial year.

Hancock Prospecting is poised to become Western Australia's biggest private company after a investment and acquisition spree in iron ore and agribusiness which is expected some time this year to push its revenue past that of the incumbent number one for the past 12 years, home builder BGC. A 2018 reranking appears certain following research for the Business News Private Companies list published today in a special report.

Canadian hydroponics technology company Roto-Gro International has closed its first day of trading on the ASX, after completing a $3.6 million initial public offering managed by Perth-based Barclay Wells.

Western Australian grain growers have delivered the biggest harvest in the history of the state, with CBH Group declaring receival, shipping and freight records were broken across the board.

An empty block cum ecological oasis in East Perth is providing opportunities for Perth's unemployed by meeting the demand for fresh produce.

The iconic Dingo Flour mill in North Fremantle is coming under new ownership after Graincorp and Cargill Australia agreed to sell their Allied Mills Australia joint venture to private equity group Pacific Equity Partners.

A local insurance broker and a data analytics specialist have teamed up to offer grain growers the same kind of cover as energy companies and construction projects.

A new agriculture research centre at Curtin University plans to tackle the $1.5 billion economic impact of crop disease in Australia.