There’s been a change at the top of Canada’s newest major grain company.
G3 Canada’s CEO Karl Gerrand left the grain company Tuesday and has been replaced by Don Chapman, the Manitoba Co-operator has learned.
G3 in 2015 purchased 50.1 per cent of the Canadian Wheat Board from the federal government and brought in Gerrand, then the managing director of Bunge Canada, as its first CEO.
Information obtained by the Co-operator says Gerrand and the company’s board of directors agreed a change in leadership was necessary.
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Chapman brings more than 20 years of international grain experience to G3, according to the information received by the Co-operator.
Chapman was executive vice-president, international, for the Lansing Trade Group. He has also worked for the Vitol Group, Viterra and Toepfer International.
G3 did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information about the management change.
G3 Canada is a joint venture firm majority-owned by multinational, publicly-traded Bunge, the world’s third largest grain and food company, and by state-owned Saudi Agricultural Livestock Investment Company (SALIC).
While G3 ostensibly paid $250 million to buy CWB, the money wasn’t paid to the government and instead remained in the new company, giving the firm a book value of $500 million, the federal government said at the time.
The remaining 49.9 per cent of G3 shares were set aside as equity to be earned by farmers who deliver grain to the company. Under terms of the deal, farmers have no say in how G3 operates.
G3 has been building a number of high-throughput country elevators in Western Canada and is building an export terminal at Vancouver, expected to be the most efficient in Canada.
— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man. Follow him at @AllanReporter on Twitter.
