Skip to content

South Central announces merger

A merger between South Central FS and a seven-county group known as Effingham Clay Service Co. was approved by the stockholders of both organizations on Monday.

The resulting nine-county agricultural cooperative will be known as South Central FS Inc. Serving as chief executive officer will be Randy Handle, current CEO of Effingham Clay Service Co. Byron Sikma, current CEO of South Central FS, will be the chief operating officer. It will be headquartered in Effingham.
The merger will be effective Oct. 1, but Sikma anticipates that the changes will be invisible to the customer.
“Everything we do now to take care of our customers’ needs will still be here after Oct. 1,” he said. “Our No. 1 goal is not to impact the customer service level at any point in the company. Our motto is: ‘Same products. Same services. Same people.’”
The new group will include the counties of Bond, Clay, Coles, Cumberland, Effingham, Fayette, Marion, Moultrie and Shelby. The old South Central FS had 68 employees in Fayette and Bond counties, Sikma said, while the new one will have 228 employees across nine counties.
“Our whole industry is changing,” he said. “And though bigger isn’t always better, we must adapt so that we’re able to provide the most-efficient services. By having scope and size, we can bring more specialized services to our customers, things such as precision farming and other new technologies. It also helps us save by consolidating our administrative costs.
“This move better positions us to meet the needs of our customers, and customer service is ‘job one’ as we make these changes.”
Talks about the merger began last spring. The opportunity was discussed at a joint meeting of both groups’ directors, and then a number of separate board meetings were held to consider the option and work out the details. The final step was to put the merger before the stockholders, a process that resulted in the stockholders’ approval on Monday.
“I’m extremely excited about the products and services that we’ll be able to offer our customers in the future,” Sikma said. “We’ve been here for 75 years, and we want to do our best to position ourselves for the future.”
Another element of the merger is that the new South Central FS will be the managing partner of Total Grain Marketing, a group of 33 grain elevators in the nine-county area. TGM is the state’s largest buyer of grains that are purchased directly from producers.
Among the products and services offered by South Central FS are fuels, lubricants, feed, seed, fertilizers, crop protection chemicals and LP gas.
The cooperative also operates Fuel 24 service stations throughout the area and a tire shop in Vandalia. It also sells garage doors through Altamont Overhead Door in Altamont.

Leave a Comment