CHS INC(CHSCL)Stock Analysis

Quirks, history, and lore behind CHSCL — the kind of stuff that makes a stock memorable.

• 1
  The Basics

  A cooperative — not a typical corporation — in the Consumer Staples sector, headquartered in Minnesota, and structured to serve its farmer and rural member-owners.
• 2
  The Numbers

  Annual revenues regularly top $30 billion, making it one of the largest cooperatives in the United States by sales — bigger than most companies you'd actually recognize.
• 3
  The History

  Traces its roots to the early 20th century cooperative movement in the upper Midwest, growing through decades of mergers and acquisitions among grain and farm supply co-ops.
• 4
  The Secret

  It operates across energy, grains, and foods — refining petroleum, trading commodities, and making everything from pork products to pasta under one cooperative roof.
• 5
  The Lore

  It owns Ventura Foods and has a stake in CF Industries-related fertilizer ventures — plus it runs one of the largest grain elevator networks in the country.
• 6
  The Giveaway

  The largest farmer-owned cooperative in the U.S., based in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, with publicly traded preferred stock but farmers — not Wall Street — calling the shots.