Jamie Mackay: The Country host previews the Fonterra annual results

Fonterra's annual financial results are due out on Wednesday morning. 

Experts are wondering if there will be an upside in the forecast milk price of $7.80 for the 23/24 season - and they've debated the possibility of a higher-than-expected annual dividend.

The Country's Jamie Mackay explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Twenty four past six. Remember Paul Bloxham's going to be
with us after the news, talk us through what's going
on with the interest rates at the Reserve Bank of Australia,
et cetera, et cetera, and whether they are affected by
what the Fed did right now with us Jamie McKay,
host to the Country A Jamie Good, I hear that,
what are you expecting from Fromterra tomorrow?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, not much in terms of the final milk price
for the twenty three to twenty four season. The experts
telling me it'll be a rounding exercise. At this stage
they're currently sitting at a midpoint of seven eighty. There
might be a wee bit of upside. I'd be surprised
if there was any downside. I think tomorrow's number that
might be of interest is the dividend. Thy'll announce the

(00:37):
final dividend for the twenty three twenty four financial year.
Remembering in twenty two to twenty three it was fifty cents.
But you don't have to go that far back in time.
In fact, to twenty eighteen nineteen it was nothing, not
a sausage, nada. And then in twenty nineteen twenty it
was only five cents, So I'm assuming I'm going to

(00:58):
make the assumption, perhaps rather foolish, that that dividend's going
to be in excess of last year's fifty cents. Miles
will probably prove me wrong. At about eight thirty tomorrow
morning we'll have that number confirmed. Wee bit of upside
on seven eighty as far as I'm aware. Once again,
Miles will probably make a fall to me. I'm not
sure they update the current season forecast, which is currently

(01:19):
sitting at eight dollars fifty midpoint. Mind you, the futures
markets are doing a bit better than that.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
H Jamie. Sounds like it's a bit tough in Southend
for the farmers at the moment with all the rainfall.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, well, you talk about diversification and farming, Heather. I've
still got a lot of mates, as you know. You
know some of them down in Southland who are sheep farmers. Well,
I think they're going to diversify into growing rice. It's
literally like a rice paddy down there. I was talking
to an old timer today and I said, is it
worse than the lambing of twenty ten or eleven? When

(01:50):
the roof on Stadium. Southland fell collapsed because of all
the snow lying on it, or was it worse than
the lambing of eighty six when we're not only at
rain for three weeks. We had Roger Douglas and he
said it was almost as bad as the lamming of
seventy two. That's how far back some of them are going.
Look it's been a bloody disaster. You've got no grass,

(02:11):
poor utilization of the grass that's growing, eye it all
gets stamped and trampled into the mud, and you've got
low soil temperatures, not much sunshine, horizontal hail down there today.
So look they're in a bit of a fix. But
you can go up the road a bit to North
Canterbury and they've got completely the opposite problem, and probably
a worse one. Those guys can't buy a break in

(02:33):
terms of soil moisture, so they're headed for a stinking drought.
It would be fair to say that Southland's a weeway
from a trout at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Jamie, good to talk to you. Thank you for that.
Appreciated as Jammy Mackay Host of the Country.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
For more from Heather Duplessy, Allen Drave listen lived and
news talks.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
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