|
University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives
UWCC Occasional Paper No. 3 - February, 1980
APPENDIX I
Summary of Regional Cooperative Equity Redemption Programs
Farmland Industries
Farmland Industries announced the commencement of their "Ownership Retirement Program"
on September 8, 1972. In essence, Farmland
Industries participates with local cooperatives in their programs of
equity retirement. Farmland redeems in cash a pro rata portion of a
local's equity in Farmland if the local has redeemed equities of deceased
and/or retired members. For example, assume a local cooperative has
$100,000 invested in Farmland Industries, and at the same time, this
same local association has $500,000 deferred back to its patrons in
some form of equity capital, i.e., common stock, preferred stock, or
other deferred equities. When this local cooperative sets up a member-
patron equity redemption plan, one of the conditions for qualifying in
the payment is that the member-patron must be of at least 65 years of
age. Farmland Industries will reduce the investment of the local
association on the ratio of the local's investment in Farmland Industries to the local
association's amount of allocated patronage to
the member-patron. In the example above, this ratio equals twenty
percent, so for all equities redeemed by the local association for
patrons over 65 years of age, Farmland Industries will make a cash
payment to the local and reduce the local association's investment in
Farmland Industries. To go one step further, assume the above listed
circumstances existed and a local association paid out $50,000 to
retire equities for persons over the age of 65. Farmland Industries
will send the cooperative a payment for twenty percent of the $50,000
paid out and the local cooperative's investment is then reduced to
$90,000 in Farmland Industries.
After two years in existence, 22 percent (469) of Farmland's
2,125 affiliated members participated in the 1974 plan. The average
cooperative participating in Farmland Industries' program, according
to W. Gordon Leith, Corporate Vice President of Farmland and Chairman
of the members' equity committee, paid out $15,265 and received $2,852
from Farmland Industries.
"Leith reported that almost every local participating in the equity retirement
program retires equities in the event of a member's
death. Most of these payments are in a lump
sum. However, in a few cases, a system of
part payments is used. About 57% of the
locals also have a retirement program. Most
use age to determine retirement, with 80%
defining retirement age as 65 years. Other
associations use 'sale or lease of farm' as
the retirement criterion. A few use eligibility
for Social Security as the determining factor." 1
CENEX (Farmers Union Central Exchange Inc.)
In mid-1974 CENEX developed an affirmative stock retirement program
which included as its major goal: To have all CENEX affiliates (those
companies with their major regional investment in CENEX) current to
within 9 months for all estates, by September 30, 1976.
CENEX's plan focuses on personal attention given to each local
cooperative having estate retirement problems (an estimated 200 locals
out of the 580 mayor stockholder affiliates of CENEX). Essentially,
this implies that CENEX's District Marketing Supervisor meets with the
boards of directors and the managers of each one of the cooperatives
that is behind in the retirement of stock held by estates and works out
an individual plan for each cooperative for the handling of those
retirements. The innovative aspect of the plan is that CENEX agreed
to act as "surety" and guarantee funds to those local cooperatives
that can project a promising future and thus loans will be provided
for picking up stock held by estates.
Midland Cooperatives Inc.
Midland does not have a formal written equity redemption policy,
but there has been a resolution passed at the 1975 Annual Meeting
that makes a strong recommendation to locals with respect to equity
redemption:
"IT IS HEREBY FURTHER RECOMMENDED that capital
stock and other capital equities held by the
representatives of the estates of deceased
persons or by stockholders who are inactive
because of age or condition of health be re-
tired by issuing in exchange for such capital
equities a subordinated promissory note or
other type of salable security bearing a reasonable rate of interest and payable in equal principal
installments or In a single amount of
maturity, and maturing in the same period of
time as that which is planned for revolving the
total equity capital of the association." 2
In a recent study conducted by Midland, it was found that 28 percent
(180) of the 643 Midland affiliated local cooperatives have written
member-patron equity redemption policies.
F. S. Services Inc.
F. S. Services Inc. has no regional member-patron equity redemption plan. The management of
F. S. Services has strongly recommended that a sinking fund be utilized in building up capital to
retire member-patron equities.
Land O' Lakes Inc.
In May 1973 Land O' Lakes announced the establishment of an
estate payment program for its Class A members (local cooperatives).
This program was approved by the Board of Directors in April, 1973,
and took effect January l, 1974. The plan has the same conditions
and characteristics as the Farmland Plan except for one difference--
Land O' Lakes' plan Includes only estates and not the "over age 65
and estates" plan that the Farmland plan includes.
Occasional Paper 3
Appendix II
1 Farmland News, "For Retirement, $7.1 Million,"
May 30, 1975, p. 65.
2 Midland Cooperator, March 31, 1975, Superior,
Wisconsin, p. 4.
Return to UWCC Homepage