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Edge of RRV MN | Local to the Ulen location, I personally didn’t think the vote would have passed seeing all the vehicles and not recognizing most of the people coming to town to vote when I was there. This shows the wide area of business they procured over the years and our little coop was actually not little.
On the agronomy side of WCAS, they had customers 90 plus miles from their nearest fertilizer hub. My guess is some of these customers were probably treated as a wholesale customer and were given a much better price than the local patrons. If you were that far from WCAS, I’m sure many were against the merger because they were buying at a price point that no one locally in their area could match.
Same could possibly be said on grain when some customers drove past 2 CHS locations to deliver to the Ulen or Beltrami terminal. Was their bid more aggressive than what was being offered to the average patron locally on that given day? To dispute my last statement, our closest CHS elevator hasn’t been competitive with WCAS in recent years but they do not have the infrastructure and volume to compete. They claim that CHS will invest in infrastructure at other CHS terminals taking pressure off the Beltrami and Ulen locations which would be a win for everyone if that actually happens. It has also been said that CHS wants to use WCAS success and model it improve their other locations.
Most Coops go broke and patrons either lose their equity or get paid a fraction of the value or they simply merge with another transferring their equity. WCAS is a very young coop, as the merger between two small elevators (Ulen & Felton) occurred about 25 years ago. The board has always been aggressive and in support of the CEO who has been with the company since it all started and did a very good job at working and being visionary for the patrons.
Time will tell if we made the right decision but I do feel the 5x equity payment and being able to use it back in your farming operation now or better yet using some of the proceeds on things while health is good on your family instead of your heirs getting it because your dead by 75 had a strong influence on the vote.
Edited by MNRRV 11/28/2024 08:48
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WCA and CHS What was the vote???
