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What do you offer to Glanbia milk suppliers?
We are offering Glanbia milk suppliers a low-cost, long-term, unsecured term loan to fund a broad range of dairy-related on-farm investment activities, called MilkFlex.
How successful has MilkFlex been?
The product has been very successful in that over €43m (out of a fund of €100m) in applications in the initial six months have been received.
What is the average loan size?
€100,000.
How many farmers have applied?
More than 420 farmers have applied for MilkFlex.
What are the loan sizes offered?
The minimum loan amount is €25,000 and the maximum is €300,000.
What is the interest rate?
The variable interest rate is 3.75% (after setup costs are included the APR is 4.18%) which is very competitive, particularly for a long-term loan of eight to 10 years.
What is the average loan term?
All MilkFlex loans are for a period of eight years, extending to a maximum of 10 years with flex events.
What can the loans be used for?
Loan uses include working capital, fertiliser, feed, machinery, farmyard development, drainage and stock purchases.
Is security required?
No asset-based security is required for any MilkFlex loan which is a particularly attractive feature. A personal guarantee is required if the borrower is a limited company.
What makes Milkflex unique?
The key feature is that repayments vary according to seasonality and milk price. Loan repayments reduce by 50% for six months when the GII manufacturing milk price falls to or below 28c/litre. There is a moratorium on all repayments when the milk price falls to or below 26c/l. Repayments will accelerate if the price rises to 34c/l. No surcharge interest is applied during these flex events.
Can I use the loan to refinance existing loans?
Refinancing of existing projects that began after March 2014 (funded from cashflow, loans or a combination of both) are eligible.
Where is the greatest demand?
It tends to be a mix of all of the above, with the greatest demand coming from housing, slatted tanks, milking parlours and dairy equipment.
Which counties are you seeing the greatest demand from?
Applications have been received from 16 counties, with the largest numbers coming from Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford.
How long does it take for approval?
Once the farm visit is completed, the farmer can expect loan approval within two weeks.
Glanbia launches 2018 seasonality scheme
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