ADM Does the Ethanol Shuffle

Reuters
Tue Jun 2, 2009 12:28pm
By ryan.blitstein - The Big Money

When Patricia Woertz assumed control of lumbering agriculture multinational Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in 2006, the ethanol boom was nearing its zenith. The former Chevron (CVX) executive launched a series of bold moves, pledging to spearhead ADM’s transformation from gorilla of grain into eco-friendly energy giant.

After the biofuels bubble burst, though, ADM took a serious profit hit, and its stock lost half its value in nine months—before the rest of the market took a nosedive. Since then, Woertz’s response has been all over the map: She quietly sent one C-level executive packing and instituted ADM’s second rebranding in two years while publicly claiming her strategy remains the same. Despite Woertz’s attempts to rewrite recent history, though, it’s clear her bioenergy bet hasn’t quite paid off, and less apparent what she plans to do about it.

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