page_title: Dalgety plc
section_title: PIC International
hierarchical_section_title: Dalgety plc / Poleaxed by BSE / PIC International
caption_attribution_description: English: A man engaging in artificial insemination of a cow
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: Dalgety was renamed PIC International Group plc. The PIC name, originally pig improvement company, came from the subsidiary bought by Dalgety in 1970. As well as the remaining activities the Dalgety board found they held rather more than £1 billion. Approximately two-thirds went as a return of capital to the shareholders. They received a total of £675 million In cash which left in the business sufficient capital for PIC's operations and repay debt.
  PIC International was renamed Sygen International in 2002 to hold PIC international and new enterprise SyAqua. Syaqua provided breeding stock to shrimp farmers with operations in Thailand, Mexico and Brazil. From headquarters in Oxfordshire Sygen operated in 30 countries on five continents. It maintained laboratories in Cambridge England and Kentucky.
  Sygen, live boar supplier to pork farmers (pig semen cannot be frozen) was bought by bull breeder  Genus plc which provided GM-free bull semen to cattle farmers. Genus, based in Crewe, had grown from the dissolved Milk Marketing Board acquiring MMB's 29,000 shareholders.
  Genus, now a world leader in animal genetics, developed sexed semen which provided only female calves saving the slaughter of male calves and doubling useful fertility. There was an echo of old times in Sygen's report for 2006. Profit had been affected by drought in Australia.
  The group's stock market value, less than £30 million in 1997, had risen by 2011 to just under £600 million. and its business was recognised as the world leader in the science of bovine and porcine animal breeding. At that time its niche seemed safe because the length of the natural breeding cycle would hold back any competitor for years. Today, 2017, Dalgety Limited incorporated 1884 is still operating named PIC Fyfield.
caption: Artificial insemination of a cow
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