"The assessment clearly shows that Fonterra's performance since inception has been unsatisfactory," says Coull in opening remarks to the analysis, undertaken by investment firm Northington Partners.

Its returns on capital employed, return on shareholders' funds and the performance of the value-add part of the business were all "lower than relevant benchmarks".

Over the 17 years since the cooperative was created in an attempt to create scale to help New Zealand's dairy industry compete in global markets, total shareholder returns had averaged 6.3 percent a year; and return on capital employed was 6 percent - against a benchmark of between 6.9 percent and 7.7 percent a year, the analysis shows.  Continue to read the full release >