At a special stockholders meeting held on Dec. 10 at the Extension Research Center in Hettinger, ND, the stockholders of Alliance Ag Cooperative formally approved a Unification Plan with Central Dakota Frontier Cooperative of Napoleon, ND. At the meeting, 96.5% percent of the co-op’s members who cast ballots voted in favor of the unification, which will take effect February 1, 2016.
In his opening remarks, Board Chairman Lynn Pagel stated, “As you are well aware, the competitive landscape is changing rapidly. In order to keep pace with these changes, your board of directors has been looking at ways to best position our cooperative for the future. As part of this process, over the past months, our board has been meeting with the board of directors at DFC to discuss the best future direction of our organization.”
“After looking long and hard at the alternatives, we have determined that we can best accomplish these goals by a unification with DFC. As your board of directors, we are excited about this future direction for our cooperative.”
CEO/General manager Nick Breidenbach, said, “This unification is an excellent example of our vision to grow the cooperative for the benefit of our patrons, to leverage added volume and geographic coverage and to reduce costs as a way to increase our value to our members and secure long term sustainability.” The boards and management teams put a lot of time and effort into this project and we believe that we can operate our cooperatives more effectively by working together than we can by continuing to operate on our own.
Curt Haibeck, DFC Board President stated, “We see the opportunity for improved efficiencies in a number of expense areas, including audit expense, insurance expense, technology expense and so on. These savings will allow us to operate more efficiently, which will be a benefit to all the member owners of the cooperative and align well with our mission to ‘provide articles, commodities, and services at the lowest net cost to our patrons.’”
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The projected sales of the combined cooperative are expected to exceed $80 million annually. The primary products and services include seed, ag chemicals, fertilizers, application services, bulk fuels, LP gas, shop services, lumber, farm and ranch, and convenience stores. After the unification, DFC will have locations in Napoleon, Wishek, Hazelton, Steele, New Salem, Bismarck, Mandan, South Heart, Regent and Hettinger, ND. The corporate office is located in Napoleon, ND.
