A Swedish court is likely to take until June or July to rule on Scottish & Newcastle's attempt to make Carlsberg sell its half of their Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH) joint venture, S&N chief executive John Dunsmore told Reuters November 23.

The dispute arose when Carlsberg, the world's fifth-largest brewer by volume, joined forces with Heineken, the fourth-largest, to bid for S&N, the sixth-largest, which S&N said broke the partnership agreement in Russia-based BBH.

Last week Carlsberg and Heineken raised their proposed bid to 750 pence a share from last month's 720p opening bid, valuing the Edinburgh-based S&N at 7.3 billion pounds ($15.11 billion).

After the first approach, S&N gave notice to Carlsberg of a possible breach of the BBH agreement and said the conditional offer had triggered the so-called shotgun agreement that allows either party to buy the other out of BBH.

"We're very confident in the position we're taking," Dunsmore said after a presentation to analysts in Copenhagen. "We're in consultations with our shareholders all the time. We make decisions based on what we think is going to create value for shareholders."

Dunsmore said no formal talks had yet been held with Carlsberg and Heineken.

He added that there was no going back to ...More Info

Leading agricultural company ABB Grain announced a net profit after tax of $7.3 million for the full year ending 30 September 2007, which is consistent with ABB’s recent profit revision, according to company’s press release, November 26.

The company will also pay a final fully franked dividend of 5.0 cents per share to shareholders on 21 December 2007 (record date: 6 December).

In making the announcement, ABB Grain’s managing director Michael Iwaniw said the 2006 drought – the worst in 25 years – had impacted significantly on ABB’s earnings.

“There’s no doubt the drought, and the volatile market activity that followed, has had a significant influence on our net profit. Our 2006/07 grain receivals of 1.8 million tonnes were just over a quarter of the previous year’s 6.6 million tonnes,” Mr Iwaniw said.

“However, a strong performance from our expanded malt operations, and growth in non-grain activities and value adding services have been real positives to come from the year.

“Our supply chain activities were boosted by an increase in throughput of non-grain materials including mineral sands, salt, gypsum and fertiliser. ABB has a well maintained network of infrastructure in place to be well positioned to capitalise on the mining boom ...More Info

Talk of increased export demand for feed barley and the need to keep prices somewhat close to malting contract figures caused feed barley prices to move upwards in several locations during the past two weeks, while cash malting prices remained unchanged, according to Farm & Ranch Guide, November 23.

“We had about a 25-cent move up in the last couple weeks and that was just to stay competitive with the malting barley,” Randy Brag with Valley Grain Services in Casselton, N.D. said. “There are still buyers out there looking for malting barley.

“The big question is how much barley is left out in the country? We have had a lot of movement of barley at these prices. And at these prices, farmers should be letting it go. What makes me nervous, as a buyer and merchandiser, right now is what's left out there.”

Two export situations also applied upward pressure to barley prices during this period.

First was an announcement of the sale of 27 million bushels of Canadian malting barley to China. Steve Edwardson. head of the N.D. Barley Council, noted this should help keep U.S. prices strong, at least in the short term.

In the past few months Japan has been purchasing a ...More Info

Opponents of the Canadian Wheat Board's single marketing desk for Prairie barley got support from four major malting companies that now urge Ottawa to press ahead with "marketing choice", Farm Business Communications reported November 27.

The four, under the banner of the Malting Industry Association of Canada, called for "the immediate introduction of legislation to allow for the complete deregulation of barley" effective Aug. 1, 2008, in view of the results of last spring's plebiscite of Prairie barley growers.

The maltsters said they arrived at their position after three months of "extensive discussions" with the CWB to help develop "alternative mechanisms" to market Prairie barley.

"Unfortunately, positions proposed by the CWB so far have not addressed the fundamental issue of providing market-driven price signals to both growers and end-users," the group said, viewing such signals as "essential" to protect both farmers and maltsters by giving them the ability to hedge their commodity risk.

The group's member companies include Prairie Malt (co-owned by Viterra and Cargill) of Biggar, Sask., ADM Malting in Winnipeg, Canada Malting Co. of Calgary (co-owned by ConAgra) and Minnesota-based Rahr Malting, which operates a malt plant at Alix, Alta. Collectively, they said, they buy about 1.1 million tonnes of malting barley ...More Info

Cereal growers with crops still to sow, including spring barley, are being urged to test home-saved seed, think hard before omitting treatment and be prepared to raise sowing rates, FWi reported November 28.

Although several factors, not least dry early seed-beds and seed dormancy, led to poor establishment this autumn, disease hit harder than usual, and must be taken into account, warn several commentators.

Infection by Microdochium nivale seedling blight - the disease most farmers and agronomists still refer to as fusarium - was exceptionally heavy this autumn, noted Scottish Agricultural Science Agency seed pathologist Valerie Cockerell.

"I don't think I've ever seen it quite as high. Average levels on Scottish wheats have been 50%."

In previous "bad" years the highest average was about 30%, and more recently it had been nearer 10%, noted Mrs Cockerell."Without doubt seed treatment for late-sown wheat will be necessary."

Fusarium infection in Bayer CropScience trials was up to 70% with up to half the plants lost, noted the firm's Adrian Cottey."Even in early-drilled crops we lost a lot.With 70% infection in later sowings without seed treatment, you could expect to lose most of the infected seedlings."

Much depended on growing conditions, he said.Fusarium seedling blight was not normally seen as ...More Info