ELDERS - the most iconic name in Australian agribusiness - is again fighting for its survival.
After last week announcing its ninth profit downgrade in two years, the 171-year-old pastoral house has seen its share price savaged to a record low of 33 cents, down from a 12-month high of $4.30.
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It had recovered to 38c at noon yesterday, yet the body blows keep coming.
IOOF, one of its two major shareholders, announced it was selling down, leaving QBE, with just over 8 per cent, as Elders' last institutional heavyweight investor.
Law firm Slater & Gordon is investigating a class action after being approached by disgruntled shareholders and receiving financial backing from litigation funder Comprehensive Legal Funding LLC.
Only a weekend of intense negotiation avoided the withdrawal of its delcredere underwriting, which had reached the point where Queensland Delcredere Agents Association members had been warned they may have to stop selling to Elders or North Australian Cattle Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company.
The warning was withdrawn on Monday.
The warning was on the back of losing about 250,000 tonnes of market share in the WA fertiliser market and the walkout of almost the whole dairy division in 2008.
When former Elders' Victoria, Riverina and Tasmania manager David Pemberton and his livestock manager, Scott Lord, also walked and set up their own consultancy in 2008, about 50 key staff followed, along with their clients.
Stock analysts have downgraded their ratings to holds and speculative buys.
It is a shockwave that has spread through the industry, with stocks such as AWB - owner of Landmark, Elders' major competitor - and chemical supplier Nufarm, also down.
The assault of generic glyphosate products on the traditionally lucrative cropping market, the explosion of smaller, low-overhead agencies, a flat rural real estate market, low cattle prices and a strong Australian dollar have all converged to batter the big players.
But Elders chief executive Malcolm Jackman, the man who engineered last year's $550 million capital raising to save the company from collapse, is adamant it is on the road to recovery.
It is a road that has already seen him shed the company's underwriting and insurance agency business and cut its shareholding in Rural Bank from 50 per cent to 40 per cent, and will now cost about 250 jobs to save $45 million.
"Yes, 20 per cent of our share registry moved in one day last week, but 20 per cent of our share registry was also purchased in one day last week," Mr Jackman said.
"There are fundamental signs that we are headed in the right direction. Wool and livestock are both good. We are expecting rural real estate to get a kick in the spring and, like everyone in agribusiness, we are making adjustments to manage the changing buying patterns of farmers, particularly in fertiliser and agchem.
"The fertiliser market has been an incredible rollercoaster ride, with amazing spikes and then a real collapse, but it is returning to more historical levels now."
Incredibly, this is not the closest the company has come to disappearing.
Its nearest brush with death occurred when the board of Foster's, which finished up owning Elders in the spectacular fallout of the Elliott era, seemed set on breaking up what was a non-core business and selling it off.
However, under then-chief executive Ted Kunkel, Foster's decided to give Elders a lifeline and launched a public float, which finished oversubscribed, and the pastoral house was back.
Mr Jackman has been with Elders for less than two years.
When he arrived, he inherited what could be described as a corporate wreckage from former CEO Les Wozniczka, who in partnership with chairman Stephen Gerlach had taken Elders in a dozen directions.
The company was buying into markets such as salmon farming, telecommunications and forestry, none of them core businesses, and none of them successful.
When asked last week whether he felt Mr Gerlach, who has been a constant through all Elders recent troubles, should fall on his sword, Mr Jackman said the company's chairman had already flagged he was leaving, as soon as a replacement was found.
When The Weekly Times suggested no one wanted the job, Mr Jackman said he preferred to say: "We have not yet made an appointment".
"We are headed in the right direction, we will get the business back to basics and we will deliver - for our shareholders, our customers and our staff," Mr Jackman added.
