March 30, 1999
Major merger in a bull market
By Vicki Hunker
Staff Writer
SHAWANO, Wis. &endash; After 59 years in business, Noba Inc. will have a new name beginning April 1. But no other changes are expected when the company merges with two others.
The sign in front of the East SR 18 business soon will say Genex Cooperative. Late last week, 89 percent of delegates from the three artificial insemination companies voted to merge. All three already were partners as subsidiaries of Cooperative Resources International.
The other two subsidiaries are Genex of Ithaca, N.Y., and 21st Century Genetics of Shawano, Wis. The Wisconsin offices will serve as the company's new headquarters.
In a prepared statement, Tim Lyons, CRI chief executive officer, said the consolidation will aid in decision making, make the company more efficient through consolidation of functions and reduce duplication of activity.
"It will also provide the opportunity to solidify the cooperative's image and business relationships, both domestically and internationally," Lyons said.
The change will consolidate personnel within the company, but is not expected to affect the services offered at the Tiffin site. The Tiffin farm will remain open and continue to house 250 bulls at full capacity. The local site also processes semen for domestic and international sales and will continue to act as a shipping point for semen being sent to other countries.
For the past 15 months, all the CRI semen sold to South American and Central American distributors has been shipped from Tiffin, regardless of where it was produced. Annually, about 1.2 million units of semen is shipped to Latin American countries.
In addition, all the semen sold to Canada and New Zealand is shipped through the Tiffin facility.
"It's really quite amazing that Noba was on its own after 59 years," said public relations representative Amy Church.
When Noba was founded 59 years ago, she said there were hundreds of similar small companies. Through the last half century, she said most small companies merged to form larger ones until there are five major artificial insemination providers to the dairy industry left in the United States. Others are based in Canada and other countries.
Genex will be the largest of the five.
In anticipation of the merger vote, a consolidated board March 1 hired Doug Wilson as chief operating officer for the new cooperative. Wilson has 28 years of experience in the artificial insemination industry, including the past six years as COO of both Noba and 21st Century Genetics.
In another merger vote, Central Livestock Association of South St. Paul, Minn., was merged into CRI as a subsidiary.
"The bringing together of CRI and CLA establishes an alliance in both beef and dairy production that promises high yielding, more consumer-desired products," Lyons said.
CRI was formed in 1993 with the merging of 21st Century Genetics with the then-Wisconsin Dairy Herd Improvement Cooperative, which is now called AgSource Cooperative Services, Verona, Wis. Noba was added to the partnership in 1994 and Genex in 1995. The addition of CLA makes the total membership nearly 62,000.