{"id":571309,"date":"2026-08-17T03:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T03:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/571309\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T03:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T03:20:09","slug":"synlait-milk-knocks-down-takeover-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/571309\/","title":{"rendered":"Synlait Milk knocks down takeover speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fonterra already has a near monopoly in the dairy sector, with its next biggest competitor being Open Country Dairy.<\/p>\n

Synlait is a distant third.<\/p>\n

Dual-listed a2 Milk owns 19.8% of Synlait, which is the company\u2019s biggest supplier of infant milk formula.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Bright Dairy went to a majority 65% holding in Synlait last year after a major restructuring of the then debt-laden firm.<\/p>\n

A2 Milk, a marketer of formula which counts China as its main market, became a manufacturer in its own right when it bought Yashili\u2019s facility at P\u014dkeno last year.<\/p>\n

However, Synlait remains a2 Milk\u2019s main supplier of formula and a2 Milk is its biggest customer.<\/p>\n

A2 Milk chief executive and managing director David Bortolussi said the company has \u201ca great relationship\u201d with both Synlait and Bright Dairy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe acquisition of the P\u014dkeno plant and the subsequent investment in the plant is indicative of our strategy going forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

By early afternoon, Synlait\u2019s share price had gained 3.5c to 40.5c.<\/p>\n

A2 Milk, which earlier reported a fall in net<\/a> profit, fell 28c or3.4% to $7.92 but well off its lows for the day.<\/p>\n

Fonterra\u2019s NZX-listed units gained 5.6c to $7.046.<\/p>\n

Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our\u00a0Business newsletter<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fonterra already has a near monopoly in the dairy sector, with its next biggest competitor being Open Country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,1656,6097,7226,2205,82837,19332,111,139,69,1136,312,9871,39193,26592,4758,301,102],"class_list":["post-571309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-company","tag-down","tag-fonterra","tag-involved","tag-knocks","tag-milk","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-private","tag-says","tag-speculation","tag-synlait","tag-takeover","tag-taking","tag-talks","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}