[UPDATED] Stuck with a bin of heated canola and few options for marketing the downgraded crop, Barry Kitt of Myrnam, Alta. was happy this past summer when a brokerage found him a decent price. A sale was made and the load shipped in early August, but Kitt was still waiting for payment in mid-November and the company that made the deal was no longer answering the phone.
Agfinity, the Stony Plain, Alta. grain broker that Kitt sold his canola through, laid off employees and started the process of declaring bankruptcy in mid-October, according to former employees. The Agfinity website has switched to maintenance mode, its social media accounts are shuttered and calls go straight to voicemail.
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“We were told (on Oct. 18) that they would be filing for bankruptcy that next Monday (Oct. 21) and that as employees we could expect to hear from a trustee who was going to give us paperwork to fill out to ensure we were paid for our last few weeks of work,” said Coco Dougherty, Agfinity’s former vice president of marketing and communications. However, Dougherty and other former staff contacted for this article had not received their final paycheques as of mid-November and were still waiting to be contacted by the bankruptcy trustee.
The company has not yet officially filed for bankruptcy, but “it should be any day now,” said Agfinity president Joseph Billett via email Nov. 19. In a draft letter to be sent to farmers owed money by the company, Billett acknowledged mistakes made over the past year and offered “sincerest apologies for the pain and stress this situation has caused.”
Kitt was out about $20,000 for his heated canola. Christi Friesen, a northern Alberta grain farmer who has been active on social media connecting farmers and shedding light on Agfinity’s non-payment issues said there are many others in the same position.
Graham Letts bought grain through Agfinity on several occasions over the years for his Westlock, Alta. livestock operation and appreciated the ease of the company’s online system. However, he noticed a change in recent years. While Agfinity had once operated as a typical grain broker — matching buyers and sellers through broker notes but never handling any money directly aside from their fee — the company started using new grain purchase contracts where they took the payment from the buyer and paid the seller at a later date. Letts recounted a situation where he bought grain and paid Agfinity the full amount, only to later hear that the farmer who made the delivery was never paid.
In a July blog post, Billett said the grain purchase contracts were necessary to support cash flow due to narrow margins. However, the company was unable to generate enough trade volumes to match costs. At the time Billett acknowledged Agfinity’s late payments and tarnished reputation, while also saying that grain purchase contracts would remain a necessary part of the business as it worked to overcome its financial difficulties.
With Agfinity headed to bankruptcy, it’s uncertain when farmers still owed money will be paid, if ever, especially as the company was never licensed through the Canadian Grain Commission.
Dougherty and two other former employees are working at launching a new brokerage firm, Grain Gateway Canada, but have run into some strangeness online.
Social media accounts and a website claiming to be Grain Gateway Canada briefly sprung up in early November before disappearing. A test version of the Agfinity buyers’ hub website was altered to show a Grain Gateway Canada logo and appeared to link the two companies. There were also reports of phone calls to farmers from people claiming to be with the new company.
Dougherty acknowledged Grain Gateway Canada would likely “wear the scarlet letter” of their past association with Agfinity but was adamant that there was no relationship between the companies. She was unsure why someone would be impersonating her fledgling company or attempting to link it to Agfinity but had documentation to back up Grain Gateway Canada’s independence.
“We feel that somebody is going out of their way to make it look like we’re doing something corrupt … and it’s just so disheartening,” said Dougherty, adding “it’s creating chaos, and panic and mistruths.”
—Updated Nov. 19 to include comments from Agfinity president Joseph Billet, updates throughout.
