Elders IXL Ltd: Finance Capital and the Geography of Corporate Restructuring

Abstract

Despite widespread agreement that the economies of nation-states have become more closely integrated globally, there has been little concrete analysis of how this has occurred. In this paper a large Australian-based firm which has emerged rapidly as a transnational agribusiness and brewing conglomerate in the 1980s is examined. The fractions of capital now reorganised as Elders IXL Ltd have adopted over time various capital accumulation strategies, forging, in each period, distinctive linkages with the global economy. To cope with restructuring crises during the 1970s, Elders has rapidly built a new global geography of production, trade, and investment, accompanied by extensive rationalisation and divestment in its Australian operations. The role of international finance capital has become increasingly important, and domestic restructuring can be understood only in terms of the new global strategies.

Financial Exclusion in Rural and Remote New South Wales, Australia: a Geography of Bank Branch Rationalisation, 1981–98

“…With regard to the Australian scene, Daly and Logan (1989), Fagan (1990) and Fagan and Webber (1994) have discussed the influence of the increasing integration of global financial markets on the restructuring of the Australian financial system and corporate sector from a predominantly macro-level perspective. More specifically, in a prescient analysis of the Australian banking sector on the cusp of financial liberalisation, Taylor and Hirst (1983) charted the relationship between regulatory change and the institutional, competitive and spatial structure of both the commercial (wholesale) and retail banking sectors throughout the post-Second World War era until the eve of financial deregulation in 1983.…”

“…In other words, those communities that are being forced to invest local working capital to provide vital financial services are those that are least able to do so: a situation similar to that of 'inverse care' (Hart, 1971). The long-term success of these alternative modes of service necessarily implicates the Federal Government and relevant statutory regulatory agencies in adopting a flexible, Figure 10 Real average taxable incomes in branchless New South Wales centres, 1986Wales centres, , 1991Wales centres, and 1996 Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas classification zone relative to the New South Wales state average ($1990) (Sources: Australian Taxation Office, 1987 spatially-nuanced approach to the regulation and interpretation of competition.…”

Recent Trends in the Internationalisation of the New Zealand Economy

“…In this part of the world there have been important contributions to understanding the process as it is manifest in Australia at the macroeconomic scale, and for certain industries and corporations (e.g. Gibson and Horvath, 1983;Taylor, 1985;Thrift, 1986b;Daly and Logan, 1989;Fagan, 1989Fagan, , 1990. To date little has been written on the New Zealand experience.…”

Industry policy and the macro‐economic environment

“…Total capital outflow from Australia has also increased as large firms have internationalised their capital accumulation spaces (Fagan 1990) into the USA and the UK. The Asia-Pacific region has played only a small part in this outflow.…”