In Hebrew one says tikkun olam, a sort of taking the world in for repairs.
Olam sources directly from small agricultural cooperatives or village-level agents who buy directly from farmers.
Verghese, 49, built Olam into a global leader by cutting out the legacy middlemen.
By the time a court ruled in Olam's favor, the supplier had gone out of business.
Verghese notes that Olam's bankers have capped the company's ratio of debt to equity at five times.
Wildly gyrating markets also raise doubts about the derivative instruments Olam uses to hedge the inventory it must carry.
Olam obliges all its recruits however fancy their MBAs or clean their fingernails to spend time living and working in the countryside.
He cites the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam, which means repairing the world.
Olam listed in Singapore in 2005, and Verghese's 5.2% stake ranked him among the 40 Richest Singaporeans in FORBES ASIA's 2008 list.
By challenging the existing norms and thinking creatively, entrepreneurs can also embrace the value of tikkum olam and help repair the world.
Olam is a Singapore-based commodities company that has enjoyed over 25% annual growth rates in both revenues and profits for the past decade.
If Olam's return on equity exceeded 25%, the Singapore group promised it wouldn't take any dividends at all, plowing the cash back in.
Olam's profit growth is driven by the volume of sales, and snack foods, where a lot of its nuts go, tend to be bust-proof.
So I know that you will never stop to strive for a better world, as you said today in a good Hebrew -- tikkun olam.
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Meanwhile, Olam has budgeted for margin calls on its derivative hedges and is helping clients with letters-of-credit problems by selling smaller lots on a cash basis.
Olam is now the world's top supplier of cashews and sesame seeds, and one of the three largest of peanuts, rice, cocoa, Robusta coffee and cotton.
Olam supplied plants in Kerala, where its cashews initially were de-shelled and blanched then exported to companies in Europe and the U.S. that did the roasting.
Verghese asserts that doesn't hit Olam badly because it is more about connecting the supply chain than holding stockpiles and thereby betting on future prices (in fact, it hedges them).
Olam International got its start 19 years ago when Sunny Verghese set out to sell cashew nuts processed in Nigeria to customers at trading centers in New York and London.
Verghese reminds that Olam has seen commodity prices gyrate before and weathered several economic blasts in its 19 years--while he points to a chart showing a steady, annual rise in net profit.
Later, as Olam moved up the value chain, Verghese set up his own processing plants in India, Vietnam and Brazil, ultimately taking the full cycle of cashew production back to Nigeria as well.
Patrick Yau, an analyst at Macquarie Research, thinks Olam's earnings per share will grow an average of 14% over two years, even though several of its commodities, which spiked not long ago, have plunged back down.
Verghese later moved Olam's headquarters to London, where he developed his ties to the food multinationals, and in 1996 to Singapore to spearhead an expansion into Asia and take advantage of a 10% tax-rate lure the city-state was offering.
"Their gearing is way higher than anybody else in the space they're operating in, " says rbs analyst Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, noting that sometime rival Noble Group, out of Hong Kong, is barely above one times equity, and that that's the sector's second-highest next to Olam.
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