Finance History|11 Wall Street — Sixteen Dollars to Cash Out the Co-ops

People treat CF Industries as a Northbrook nitrogen house that always printed CF.

The 2005 issuer was still a farmer cooperative on the eve of the sale.

CF Industries Holdings was formed in April 2005 as a Delaware corporation to hold CF Industries, Inc.

The company's 2005 annual report records that common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on 11 August 2005 under CF, priced at 16 dollars a share.

The investor FAQ records 41,250,000 shares in the offering plus 6,187,500 overallotment shares, and 7,562,500 shares issued to two former cooperative owners, for 55,000,000 shares in total.

The 2007 Form 10-K recorded that the company sold 47,437,500 shares and received net proceeds of approximately 715.4 million dollars in 2005 currency after discounts.

It retained none of that cash. The proceeds and the leftover shares cancelled the co-op equity.

Chemical and Engineering News recorded that Land O'Lakes received 315 million dollars and exited a 38 percent interest, and that CHS cut its stake from about 20 percent to 4 percent.

The 2005 report gave a third-quarter high of 18.00 dollars and a quarter close of 14.81.

The mechanism is a cooperative conversion. Farmer owners sold most of the company to public holders rather than keep a minority float.

The pin is the Broad Street facade of the Exchange, where CF first printed. Interior trading is not visitable from the sidewalk.

Photo: Arild Vagen, August 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. New York Stock Exchange from Broad Street.