Shares
Learn who can become a shareholder and how to invest. Find recent announcements and important dates relating to our shares.
Share alignment
Zespri is committed to helping increase the number of growers who are shareholders. This is a key driver of our Shareholder Alignment project which is focused on strengthening grower ownership of Zespri.
There are two components to Zespri Share Alignment:
- The measurement of the number of grower shareholders vs non shareholder growers.
- The individual grower's shareholder ratio which is measured against their production.
What are we aiming for?
In a perfectly aligned scenario, every grower would be a Zespri shareholder and each grower’s percentage of shares would be the same as their percentage of the total crop supplied.
It’s impossible to achieve perfect alignment figures because the overall crop number and each grower’s production fluctuates.
We aim to keep the number of Zespri shares approximately in line with the average number of New Zealand trays so that the ratio of “shares owned : trays produced” is a workable estimate of a grower’s alignment.
Over time the alignment between shareholders and growers has decreased. Because we are not a cooperative, there is no compulsion for our current growers to own shares, or a requirement for shareholders leaving the industry to sell their shares.
From May 2025, growers will be able to opt-in to receive their June loyalty payment as shares (LaS), with shareholders also able to opt-in to receive their dividend payments as shares (DaS).
Why does share ownership matter?
Zespri is owned and controlled by Growers past and present, however over time we’ve seen the number of growers who own shares drop. We believe better share alignment helps create industry unity and makes the sharing of wealth more equitable for all growers. It will also provide a better base for the industry to make important decisions about strategic decisions for the industry.
Industry-wide consultation
At the moment, around 47% of New Zealand growers currently own Zespri shares. We believe it's crucial to align our industry through lifting grower ownership and ensure we can continue to grow in a way that continues to deliver value across the industry.
In 2023, we undertook industry-wide consultation on Zespri share ownership. We gathered valuable feedback from this process through Shed Talks, share workshops, and surveys, and heard a strong message from growers that better share alignment was important and that there needed to be more information on Zespri shares.
Based on this feedback, we developed a list of potential initiatives to address share alignment that matched with the principles that growers told us were most important.
These included:
- Zespri should be owned and controlled by current New Zealand growers
- The aspirational level of ownership is 100 percent participation to 1:1 alignment
- Growers should have the choice to own shares (no compulsion)
- Encourage share ownership with options that don’t require upfront capital outlay
- Consider the impact on current shareholders
- Any share initiative needs to be simple/easy to participate in and understand.
Following the significant industry consultation in 2023, the shareholder alignment programme has established three key goals and targets outlined in the table below which are guiding our work.
| Goals | Targets |
|---|---|
| Improve the percentage of New Zealand growers that own Zespri shares (going wider) | At least 75 percent of New Zealand growers are Zespri shareholders by 2030 |
| Improve shareholder alignment (going deeper) | At least 60 percent of New Zealand growers hold shares at a ratio of between 0.5 and 2.0 shares per tray of production by 2030 |
| Seek to minimise shareholder dilution, and utilise freshly raised capital to facilitate the buy-back of ‘dry’ and over 6:1 cap shares | The percentage of dry shares, and shares above the 6:1 cap, are below five percent by 2028 |
Loyalty as Shares and Dividend as Shares
Following support from the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) as part of our Industry Alignment framework, Zespri is proceeding with two initiatives designed to strengthen its grower shareholding.
- Initiative one: Growers will be offered the opportunity to receive their June loyalty payment (relating to our 2024 harvest season) as shares.
- Initiative two: Growers will have the ability to reinvest dividend payments as shares.
These initiatives will be available each year from 2025, and are designed to provide growers with an opportunity to increase their shareholding without needing to commit a significant upfront outlay of cash in buying shares.
It's important to note that at this stage:
- No money is being asked for and you can’t apply for Loyalty as Shares or Dividends as Shares yet;
- When the Loyalty as Shares and Dividends as Shares initiatives proceed, the offers will be made in accordance with the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.
- During the opt-in period in May/early June the Board will issue a strike price range informed by an independent valuation. Subsequent to the July Board approving the actual ‘strike price’ also based on an independent valuation, opted-in participants for the LaS / DaS will have a 5-day window to opt-out electronically.
- If growers decide to opt-out in the 5 day window and on the date the shares would have been issued, they will receive a cash payment instead of shares.
Timeline
July - December 2024
Zespri requests growers to provide their bank account details for January 2025 loyalty payment.
January 2025
Loyalty Payment 1 - paid in cash direct to growers.
May 2025
Zespri issues Loyalty as Shares/Dividends as Shares offer documents. Growers may decide to opt in to share initiatives.
13 June 2025
Loyalty Payment 2 (cash payment for those not opting in for Loyalty as Shares).
4 July 2025
Dividend record date (2 weeks prior to dividend payment).
11 July 2025
Zespri issues shares in lieu of Loyalty Payment 2 (Loyalty as Shares).
18 July 2025
Zespri issues Dividend as Shares (those who opt in) and Cash Dividend (all others not opted in).
Loyalty as Shares
From May 2025 all Growers will have the option to opt-in to both Loyalty as Share (LaS) and Dividend as Shares (DaS) initiatives, when the offer documents are released.
The LaS offer documents will be made available to growers who:
- Supplied Zespri with a 2024 crop,
- are due the Loyalty payment,
- are a current producer,
- have a valid lease (if a leaseholder arrangement is in place) and,
- to those that have the available headroom to acquire more shares.
Changes to the loyalty programme
As part of our work supporting the Loyalty as Shares (LaS) initiative, all loyalty payments from 2025 will be made directly from Zespri to Growers’ nominated bank account, rather than being paid from your post-harvest entity as most have done in the past.
It’s important to note that this change will mean we’ll need ALL growers’ bank details, even if you aren’t intending to opt-in to these initiatives in 2025.
Key takeaways are:
- Growers will now get their Loyalty payments directly from Zespri
- Growers will have the choice to opt-in to take June Loyalty payment as Shares or continue to receive them as cash payments.
Updating your bank details
Due to these changes, we now require growers' bank account details, even if you do not intend on opting-in for either of these initiatives.
Some growers have already supplied Zespri with their bank details. If you have, you will just need to verify we have the right account details for your entity. If you haven’t had a direct payment from Zespri, we will need to collect your bank account and GST details to make sure we have time to pay your first loyalty rebate in January 2025. You will need to provide proof of your bank account details. Confirmation of Bank accounts should include the ACCOUNT NAME and ACCOUNT NUMBER (e.g. MJ Family trust. We will not accept the name being the “everyday account”.
Zespri will store your details securely in our system, in accordance with our privacy policy which you can view at https://www.zespri.com/en-NZ/privacypolicy.
**At this stage of the process, the only thing that you need to do is update your bank account details and GST numbers via the Industry Portal**
Please refer to instructions linked below for how to update or verify your bank account details.
How will it be calculated?
Under the revised loyalty agreement, the loyalty premium will be calculated across Free on-Board Stowed (FOBS) trays, but actually paid across all trays submitted. This has the effect of spreading the premium and the fruit loss risk across all trays that make it into submit.
While the impact on average is very small, paying on submit trays has a greater proportional impact on growers who ship later and who have much higher fruit loss percentage than the season average. This revision does not change the total value of loyalty paid out and was agreed by the Industry Advisory Council in February 2024 for loyalty payments from January 2025.
Read more on the Loyalty Payments page.
Dividend as Shares
Zespri will also be issuing offer documents in May 2025 for growers who want to opt-in to reinvest their dividend payment as Zespri Shares (Dividend as Shares initiative).
This is commonly known as a Dividend Reinvestment Plan which allows shareholders to have their dividend reinvested in additional shares rather that receiving the dividend as a cash payment. The ‘strike price’ which is the price that the shares are transacted at will be set by the Zespri Board after consideration of an independent shares valuation.
**At this stage of the process, nothing further is required from you until the offer documents are published and distributed in May 2025**
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