Fortescue CEO Andrew Forrest buys slice of Bega Cheese

A private investment group owned by Fortescue Metals chief Andrew Forrest has purchased a 6.61 per cent stake in Bega Cheese, making him a substantial investor in the dairy company.

In a statement published to the ASX on Thursday morning, the dairy and food company announced that private investment group Tattarang AgriFood Investments has purchased more than 20 million shares for a total consideration of $108,325,094 between November 10 and December 29.

Investors responded positively to the news, with Bega’s share price jumping more than 10 per cent in mid-morning trade. They were up 3.6 per cent at $5.52 as of 12:05pm.

A week ago, Bega Cheese’s share price tanked by more than 12 per cent after publishing a sour trading outlook that outlined a raft of issues that would hit its profitability in the 2022 financial year.

“These impacts have been extensive and significant ranging from market disruption in Australian food service channels as a result of lockdowns, structural change in the Chinese infant and toddler dairy nutritional market, significant operational disruption including factory shutdowns, major changes to operations and logistics scheduling, increased safety and testing regimes, major cost increases and shortages across the entire supply chain,” Bega stated.

The company expects normalised earnings before interest, tax and depreciation for this financial year of somewhere between $195 million to $215 million.

Earlier this year, Bega Cheese struck a $534 million deal to bring iconic Australian food brands such as Pura and Big M back into Australian hands for the first time in a decade.