Miller Magazine Issue 107 / November 2018

40 MILLER / NOVEMBER 2018 NEWS Louis Dreyfus CEO quits in latest shakeup at commodity giant Louis Dreyfus announced the departure of both its chief executive and its finance head, in the latest ma- nagement shakeup at the agricultural commodity gi- ant. The group said in a statement that Gonzalo Rami- rez Martiarena had resigned as CEO after three years in the post to pursue other opportunities, and would be replaced with immediate effect by Ian McIntosh, previously chief strategy officer. British national McIn- tosh has worked for the family-owned group since 1986, Louis Dreyfus said in a statement. A spokeswo- man for Louis Dreyfus said the departures of Ramirez and Lumens were “unrelated and coincidental”. Louis Dreyfus also announced that Federico Cerisoli, previ- ously deputy chief financial officer, will become group CFO after Armand Lumens decided to leave for perso- nal reasons after less than two years in the post. Dreyfus, the “D” of the so-called ‘ABCD’ quartet of agricultural commodity giants that also includes Ar- cher Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill, has seen a series of management changes in recent years under chairperson and majority shareholder Margarita Lou- is-Dreyfus. Those changes have also occured in the midst of a general downturn in agricultural markets. Several senior traders, led by its former global head of grains, left the group together a year ago and have since joined a trading firm set up by other members of the Louis Dreyfus family, Reuters reported. This year saw McIntosh arrive from former Louis Dreyfus invest- ment fund Edesia as strategy chief, while human re- sources head Andrea Maserati was promoted to chief operating officer. The industry’s traditional modelling of buying crops, storing them in silos and trading the inventory is under pressure from advances in technology, and companies such as LDC have been trying to move downstream into more complex processing activities. LDC has also drawn up plans to realign its geographical footprint towards Asia and has been exploring strategic alliances with key players in China so that it can get closer to its end cus- tomer, Financial Times reports. It has also sold its metals business and is looking for partners to invest in some of its non-core businesses, such orange juice and dairy. Saudi Arabia to allow private sector to import feed barley Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest importer of feed bar- ley, will restore a private sector role in the trade after two years during which it was handled solely by the sta- te, said Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Abdel Rahman Al-Fadli. Saudi Arabia used to import its feed barley through the private sector but since 2016 the responsibility for imports has been held by the state grain buyer, the Saudi Grains Organisation (SAGO). The king- dom has become a major importer of wheat and barley since plans to become self-sufficient were abandoned in 2008 because farming in the desert was draining scarce water supplies. The private sector will have to adhere to the same spe- cifications as SAGO when handling imports, state news agency SPA quoted al-Fadli as stating. “We were ex- pecting Saudi to revert to the private sector soon when it comes to barley,” one Middle East grain trader told Reuters. “The details should come out soon,” he said. Imported barley is used for animal feed in Saudi Ara- bia. Domestic feed barley consumption in 2017/2018 is forecast to decline by about 14 percent to 8 million MT. Barley consumption is forecast to decline by another six percent in MY2018/19 compared to MY2017/18. The Saudi government has been encouraging the use of pro- cessed feed instead of raw barley with the aim to reduce barley imports by 1.5 million tonnes by 2020. Saudi Arabia will allow the private sector to import feed barley, state grain buyer SAGO confirmed. The agriculture ministry took the decision after requests from private sector businesses, SAGO said.