Laurel, MS - Sanderson Farms, Inc. announced that at the Company's annual meeting in Laurel, Mississippi, stockholders approved an amendment to increase the size of the Board of Directors from nine to twelve members. Immediately following the annual meeting, the Board appointed Lampkin Butts, Vice President-Sales of Sanderson Farms, and Mike Cockrell, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of Sanderson Farms, to fill two of the three new positions. Butts was appointed to serve as a Class A Director until the 1999 annual meeting. Cockrell was appointed to serve as a Class B Director until the 2000 annual meeting. The Company expects to fill the remaining new position in the near future.
Addressing stockholders at the meeting, Joe F. Sanderson, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Fiscal 1997 was marked by three significant events that influenced our results. While 1997 will be remembered as the year we began start-up operations in Texas, which start-up was completed successfully, on time and within budget, we experienced the anticipated negative impact on profitability that is typical of start- up operations. The year will also be remembered as the year of the fire at our McComb, Mississippi, processing plant. Although we were able to return to basic processing less than a week after the fire, the plant's full marketing capabilities and efficiencies were not fully restored until the fourth quarter. Finally, we experienced a steep decline during fiscal 1997 in the market price for our products. The market price for poultry products as measured by the Georgia dock quote peaked during fiscal 1997 at $.66 per pound in November 1996, and then steadily declined to $.58 per pound by the end of the fiscal year." Sanderson Farms plans to announce results for the first quarter ended January 31, 1998, on February 24.
At the annual meeting, stockholders also re-elected William R. Sanderson, Robert Buck Sanderson and Donald W. Zacharias as Class C Directors to serve until the annual meeting in 2001, and ratified the selection of Ernst & Young LLP as independent auditors for the fiscal year ending October 31, 1998.
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