Saskatoon — Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Wayne Brownlee said last week that if the company cannot increase upon its 14 percent stake in Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL), that it would probably exit that stock in due course. PotashCorp has sought to increase its stake, and Brownlee said there is a question of whether or not it will be able to get further influence so as to generate value for its shareholders. He said the company did not get into ICL to be a passive shareholder. “We got in there because we actually had a bigger deal in mind, and it has just taken a while to pull together still.” While PotashCorp does hold larger minority stakes in other companies – Arab Potash Corp. (APC) (28 percent) and SQM (32 percent) – it also holds three board seats on each of those and appoints four top managers at APC. It holds a minority stake in China’s Sinofert, but sees this as a window into China, as well as an opportunity should the Chinese government opt to reduce its stake. He was speaking before the Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets Agriculture, Fertilizers and Chemical Conference Sept. 18.
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