FERTILISER COMPANIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20704, 30 April 1929, Page 13

FERTILISER COMPANIES.

AN AUSTRALIAN MERGER. . (Special to Daily Tikes,) AUCKLAND, April 29. A merger between the three largest fertiliser companies in Australia has just been. announced, according to a private ' cablegram received in Auckland. The concerns affected are the Mount Lyell ' Mining and Railway Company, the Cummings Smitth Fertiliser Company, and Wischer s, Ltd. These companies control most of the fertiliser business of the Commonwealth. The only other considerable manufacturers are the Cresco Fertiliser Company, a farmers' organisation, with works in Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia, and the Western Australian Farmers’ Fertiliser Company. The latter, however, is allied with the Mount " Lyell Company. The merger will have no direct effect upon the New Zealand industry, since the. Dominion neither imports fertilisers from nor exports them to Australia. Those in the local trade are not surprised at the news, because rumours of negotiations, have been current for some time. One authority pave his opinion that the merger might lead to the linking up of the Australian manufacture of fertilisers with Imperial Chemical Industries, the huge combine directed by Lord Melchhett, The combine, he said, was believed to bherish the desire to establish its operations in the Australian industrial field, where one of its constituent companies, Nobel Industries, Ltd,, had carried on a large business' in explosives lor many years past. So far as he was aware, it bad made no overtures as yet to 'New Zealand fertiliser ■ manufacturers. ' • ;•