page_title: Dalgety plc
section_title: Associated British Maltsters
hierarchical_section_title: Dalgety plc / 1970s / Associated British Maltsters
caption_attribution_description: English: ABM malt kiln Long redundant and apparently destined for demolition
context_page_description: Dalgety plc—as Dalgety and Company—was for more than a century a major pastoral and agricultural company or stock and station agency in Australia and New Zealand. Controlled from London it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and Australasian exchanges.
  With the mid-20th century decline of the pastoral sector, particularly where Dalgety held the leading position in the synthetics bedevilled slumping wool trade, new investment was made in different sectors in other countries and Australasian investments sold down until it became a foods and agricultural business of the northern hemisphere.
  A successful conglomerate its core businesses were badly damaged by the wholesale slaughter of British beef animals following the discovery mad cow disease did, as suspected, move from cattle to humans. In 1996 and 1997 Dalgety sold 75 per cent of its whole business leaving its principal investment in animal biotechnology. Renamed PIC International after its own biotech subsidiary it merged in 2005 with a matching business Genus plc for a market valuation in the same league as Dalgety had attained in the 1990s.
context_section_description: Late in 1972 Dalgety made a successful take-over bid for Associated British Maltsters then for a tenth of the sum bought the largest stockyards in Europe at Banbury but the stockyard was sold off in 1976. Profits rebounded in 1973, Australia contributed £5.34 million and New Zealand £4.7 million. 
  The Dalgety rural division in Western Australia was sold to Western Livestock in August 1974. ICI bought Tasman Vaccine Laboratories. Dalgety New Zealand was now only 67 per cent owned. To handle agricultural commodities from Brazil Dalgety formed a new company with Munchmeyer Petersen of Hamburg.
  By 1975 the United Kingdom division was the largest contributor to profits and that was repeated the following year. Commentators now considered the 67 per cent owned New Zealand business, its 1976 profit was £5.3 million, was inherently more profitable than Australia's.
  Dalgety paid £10 million for Federated Chemical Holdings (without its minority shareholding in Tioxide Group) at the end of 1977 because it would fit well with the procurements as well as with marketing the products of their ABM Chemicals. Federated was a distributor of chemicals and allied raw materials in North America, Europe and the Far East.
caption: an ABM malt kiln, Louth, Lincolnshire shortly before demolition
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