December 3, 2012

Fonterra dairy cooperative to merge underperforming core units

Fonterra dairy cooperative is set to merge its under-performing Australian-New Zealand unit with its Asia/Middle East/African division.

The new single business unit will be called APMEA and will be headed by Asia/Middle East/Africa division managing director Mark Wilson, whose new role will take effect on January 1, 2013. This plan will see the departure of ANZ unit managing director John Doumani in March 2013.

Fonterra chief executive officer Theo Spierings was quoted as saying that this plan is part of the co-operative's strategy to grow its consumer businesses.

"Our businesses across Asia Pacific represent around 40% of our earnings and are vital to the co-operative," Spierings said.

"There are big growth opportunities in the emerging markets of Asia and the Middle East, and some challenges to address in our home markets of Australia and New Zealand and our strategy requires us to address both," he added.