Monday, June 2, 2014

Saputo will post financials Thursday

Saputo Inc., the largest dairy processor in Canada and third-largest  in the United States, will reveal its financial status on Thursday.

The Globe and Mail says in a feature article that when Saputo reveals its fourth-quarter results, it will likely tell how well the integration of its most recent acquisition, Warrnambool Cheese and Butter of Australia is going.

Saputo paid a hefty premium to out-bid competitors for the company which it hopes to use as a launching pad into the Asian markets, especially China.

Saputo is now valued at $10 billion on the stock markets; it went public in 1997 after starting as a family business and expanding from its Montreal base to a company with operations across Canada, over most of the United States and into Argentina and now Australia.

Its history is tainted by one brush with the Montreal Mafia which has been documented in a book about the Mafia. The Saputos have said the accounts are not true and that the company is free of any criminal involvements.

There are critics of Canada’s dairy industry who say supply management has prompted the company to shop elsewhere because it can’t use Canada as a launching pad into export markets.

That means jobs and potential tax revenues are being generated elsewhere.


Dairy farmers counter that supply management has steadied the industry, providing them and Saputo with a solid base on which to build for the future.