Great Southern’s share price has fallen significantly in the past month, with unprecedented volatility in global financial markets and its largest shareholder, Ospraie Group, deciding to close its flagship hedge fund and sell down investments over the next three years.
As a result, the company has postponed plans for a major restructure of the business, which aimed to reposition the company with three separate streams of forestry, agricultural investment services, and cattle business.
The program ‘Project Transform’ intended to combine the company’s key asset — high value agricultural land — with the tree and cattle assets of managed investment schemes, thus creating a “more sustainable, transparent, and valuable business for all stakeholders that would become less susceptible to regulator uncertainty”.
Any changes to the proposals will need to be presented to the independent directors of Great Southern. The project approvals by shareholders and investors are likely to be deferred to later in the year.
