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There has been another complication in the $2 billion battle between Fonterra and San Miguel for the Australian dairy company National Foods.
Now, San Miguel's biggest shareholder, the Philippines government, wants to sell out.
Up until now, San Miguel has had the upper hand in the battle to buy the National Foods dairy business, after trumping Fonterra's initial bid.
"It's a little bit like a poker game. You don't know what the other one's going to do," says Professor Keith Woodford of Lincoln University.
San Miguel's $4 billion beer and food business looks insignificant alongside Fonterra's $12 billion turnover.
But what San Miguel lacks in financial strength, it makes up for with bravado.
Chairman Eduardo Cojuanco is a former Marcos crony who took New Zealand's thoroughbred industry by storm four years ago when he paid a record $3,600,000 for a yearling.
Now, Australian farmers have been won over by San Miguel's promise to keep the business intact.
"I get the opinion that they would leave the company as it is and let it keep running the way it's been running in the last few years. And it also opens up the Asian market more so than ever," says National Foods supplier Geoff Davis.
Fonterra on the other hand has raised concerns by signalling that it wants to extract synergies in Australia by rolling the National Foods business into its existing venture with Bonlac.
Australian Dairy Farmers President Allan Burgess says restructuring and synergies potentially means fewer jobs.
One News Business Correspondent Owen Poland says the takeover battle between Fonterra and San Miguel is all about getting access to Australia's $11 billion dairy market.
"National Foods is a major supplier of fresh milk like PURA, but it also produces a highly sought after range of value-added products like yoplait which represent the jewel in the crown," he says.
But some analysts question why Fonterra wants to pay top dollar for Australian brands when it should be developing its own value-added products.
Dairy Industry Commentator Tony Baldwin says: "It's basically about taking a risk on farmer's capital. It's trying to add value to their capital, not to their milk. So it's actually not terribly consistent with their primary charter."
Buying national Foods for around $2 billion would cost the average Kiwi farmer around $160,000.
But some, including Dairy Farmers of New Zealand spokesman Kevin Wooding, think it might be better to walk away.
"I guess
most farmers will be quite relaxed to see it invested in something
wiser," Wooding says.
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