Transcript for Wellard Limited (ASX:WLD) ASX Listing InterviewCarolyn Herbert: Hello I’m Carolyn Herbert from the Finance News Network and joining me from integrated agribusiness company Wellard is CEO and Managing Director Mauro Balzarini.
Mauro, firstly congratulations on the listing today.
Mauro Balzarini: Thank you very much, it is a very happy day for us. This company dates back 50 years ago in Italy, when my father founded it. So we are proud to get to this point and are looking forward to the next phase of our development.
Carolyn Herbert: Now for investors who aren’t familiar with Wellard, can you give us a brief introduction to the company?
Mauro Balzarini: We play the red meat market in south-east Asia mainly and the Middle East. We are the largest exporter of live cattle from Australia and we are a vertically integrated company. This means we are connected directly to farmgate, producer and to the market in Asia and the Middle East. We have a global spread in the sense that we don’t only do Australia; we are also active in South America as a sourcing market.
Carolyn Herbert: And Mauro for investors who participated in the IPO, what price did you start trading?
Mauro Balzarini: We started trading at $1.39 which was the listing price.
Carolyn Herbert: Now the listing raised almost $300 million, what value does that put on the company and where are the funds going?
Mauro Balzarini: The market cap is around $560 million and with the funds that we raised we have to fund our growth initiative, which is mainly downstream participation in the beef market in China and expansion of our shipping capacity and strengthening of our North Australian operations and South America.
Carolyn Herbert: Mauro can you tell us about the business model and Wellard’s competitive advantages?
Mauro Balzarini: Sure, our business model is mainly to connect producers in Australia and South America to consumers in South-East Asia, the Middle East and other markets. And our competitive advantage is firstly the vertical integration, so the control of all the assets along the supply chain and the management team, the in-market management team; and the other big driver for us is the commitment and the result we achieved in the animal welfare standards.
Carolyn Herbert: So where are your biggest customers located and what’s forecasted in terms of meat consumption in these markets in the medium term?
Mauro Balzarini: Our biggest market is still Indonesia and the second biggest market is Vietnam, these are countries where the meat consumption is still below 5 kilos per capita, per year so you can easily see that if they want to reach a higher standard, in Australia we do 28 kilos, they have a long way to go and that’s where we are in terms of supplying them, they like cattle where they can get that consumption from.
Carolyn Herbert: And Mauro could you tell us about your plans for China?
Mauro Balzarini: In China we are going to have a joint venture in Beijing, where we will invest together with Chinese Investors in two feedlots and one abattoir facility that will be co-located so Australian cattle will go into our joint venture and will be processed in China for distribution of red meat.
Carolyn Herbert: And finally Mauro, where would you like to see Wellard this time next year?
Mauro Balzarini: The most important thing for us is to achieve those targets and to develop the growth strategy that we have in the prospectus, so the main thing is concentrating on that. But of course in our plan there many more initiatives and we will continue to develop the company to the next phase.
Carolyn Herbert: Mauro Balzarini congratulations on the listing and thanks for the introduction to Wellard.
Mauro Balzarini: Thank you very much.
ENDS
