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What’s the difference? Simplification. Investors increasingly want simple businesses – focused pure-plays exposed to one or two structural themes, not multi-faceted businesses with arms moving at different speeds and knocked around by myriad factors.Those complex businesses are hard to manage, hard to govern and hard to forecast for an investor also trying to keep tabs on 30 other companies in their portfolio. One thing done well and consistently well is better than a roller-coaster ride.
But the fact it is giving him the licence to try, is a sign of a business with an improved relationship with its shareholders.Spurway is walking the same fine line on dividends versus growth as Woodside Petroleum, BHP Group, Telstra and plenty of other ASX-listed companies.But he has shown a willingness to give and take. He has given some of the excess capital back to shareholders via special dividends and buybacks in recent periods , albeit kept most of it for the proposed expansion.
Spurway says the main thing is to be close to oilseed supply, fuel refining capacity and customers – and notes there is a surplus of canola seed that could be crushed on both sides of the country.