Once mighty Potash falls hard

reportonbusiness.com: Once mighty Potash falls hard
Oct 2, 2008 ... Potash Corp.'s swoon has come as investors have fallen out of love with commodities in general, said Wayne Brownlee, chief financial officer ...
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081002.wpotash03/BNStory/Business/home?cid=al_gam_mostview

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Potash Corp whines about stock price

Top officials from the world’s largest fertilizer maker were in London this week trying to convince investors their stock has been unjustly thumped.
Potash Corp of Saskatchewan shares at the Toronto Stock Exchange have lost 30 percent of their value since a mid-June peak, even though prices for potash fertilizer continued their meteoric rise.
“Not that I’m whining about it, but we do have the lowest multiples we’ve ever had. Ever. And I’m not sure it reflects the true value of the company,” said Wayne Brownlee, the chief financial officer of Potash Corp, which plans to boost its potash capacity by 80 percent to capture higher prices.
Hedge funds fled commodities and unwound Potash Corp positions since June, Chief Executive Bill Doyle said. Doyle continued to hold fast to his rosy outlook, noting producers are short on potash and prices should continue to rise this year, although not at the same rate as last year, when they tripled.
Grain prices should remain historically high, Doyle said, leaving farmers flush and able to pay more for fertilizer.
“Farmers will grouse that their costs are up. They are up, about $39 billion, but their receipts are up $50 billion. So the math works,” Doyle said.
And despite recent events rocking the world’s financial capitals, demand for grain will continue to grow, keeping pressure on supplies, Doyle said, unless the world economy slips into a depression.
“A lot of the people (in developing economies) who have this aspiration to eat better, I guarantee you, wouldn’t know what had happened to the investment banking community in New York,” he said. “It’s not high on their priority list, where food is.” http://blogs.reuters.com/commodity-corner/2008/09/24/potash-corp-carps-about-stock-price/

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Wayne Brownlee

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer- PotashCorp

As the head of PotashCorp's expansion and development efforts in the 1990s, Wayne Brownlee was instrumental in the acquisition of more than US$ 4 billion in assets. The company now has the world's largest integrated production capacity for the three primary nutrients.

Mr. Brownlee was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PotashCorp in 2006 after serving as Senior Vice President, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer since 1999. Prior to that, he held the titles of Senior Vice President, Expansion and Development, Vice President, Expansion and Development and Director, Business Development. He also coordinated the privatization of PotashCorp in 1988, which transformed the company from a provincial Crown corporation to a publicly traded entity.

Before joining PotashCorp, Mr. Brownlee served in the Department of Finance for the Government of Saskatchewan, including three years as Associate Deputy Minister of the Treasury Board Division. He earned a bachelor's degree in Science and a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Saskatchewan.

Mr. Brownlee is a director of Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, the world's largest potassium nitrate and iodine producer, with operations in Chile, and in which PotashCorp owns a 32 percent equity interest. He is also a director of Great Western Brewing Company.

Brownlee's Potash Corp. impishly called the 2007 proxy circular that details executive pay "Enriching Food, Enriching Life," but forgot to add "Enriching Executives' Lives." Brownlee's $521,586 salary represented 3.7% of his total payout after options and bonuses last year.
Not to be confused with... The low-to-no-profile Potash Corp. executive shares his name with former Ottawa fire chief Wayne Brownlee, who would have made a paltry $151,252 last year were he still on the job. Read Full Post...