Unidentified Company Representative
Analyst · JPMorgan
Well, Jeff, you noticed there’s been lot of positive comments coming from various Uralkali spokesmen, but they don't seem to match with what we see. They seem to be very positive comments, but we don't think they are doing as well as what they say. If you look at some of the fallout from this, certainly they’ve upset customers around the world with many of those customers forced to take write downs on their inventory. Customers, they don't forget that type of leadership or lack there of, I should say in this case, and many of them regard to Uralkali as being irresponsible. We’ve had a lot of face time since the end of July with our customers around the world, and the customers feel that Uralkali put their interest ahead of customer, and for us, in Canpotex, the customer always comes first. So we started looking at some of the details. Their CEO was in prison and now is under house arrest for almost two months, that can't be a pleasant experience for him, and their owner looks to be forced to sell his shares in the company. I’m sure he didn't have that in mind when he came up with this scheme. Their shareholders have just learned of a major cut of their dividend yesterday and sure they are not too happy there. I think the basic problem that they have is they didn’t understand market psychology. Markets yearn, as I said earlier, for stability and certainty not upheaval, and their announcement froze the potash market worldwide. But it was based on a strategy that was – it was based on a faulty promise and certainly has been a, I think, a mitigated failure, they will have a much worse financial results and have hurt themselves the most and it really comes from, I think, having inexperienced ownership and management and probably the worst thing is that they have done long-term damage to their reputation and reputation is everything in life and business, and that's why Canpotex, I can tell you, when this is all over and the dust is settled, Canpotex is going to come out way ahead, because Canpotex is regarded and has always been regarded as a true leader of the potash industry in terms of sales and they always regard their customers interest first and have been a very, very responsible player in the game.