After months of speculation, Australia's third-largest milk processor, the Dairy Farmers co-operative, announced on 28 March that it would consider third party interests to either acquire, merge or enter into a joint venture with the co-operative in a bid to allow its 2,000 farmer shareholders to "access the market value of their equity in the business". Since then, chief executive Rob Gordon has said that a wide range of domestic and international parties had expressed an interest in the co-operative. "During the past four years, Dairy Farmers has been systematically restructured to prepare it for an external investment opportunity," Gordon notes. "The board will have to be methodical in its assessment of the available options." The process has inspired much speculation in the last few months and while solid information is sparse due to confidentiality agreements, the interest has been acknowledged by a wide variety of international companies.
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