As Cargill started laying off thousands of employees last month, the company’s owners made $2 billion from stock buybacks and one-time dividends, according to Fitch Ratings.

The Minnetonka-based agribusiness announced in December it would lay off 5% of its global workforce, or about 8,000 people, as part of a broader restructuring to counter declining profits. About 475 headquarters jobs were eliminated in Minnesota.

At the same time, the private company’s owners — almost entirely members of the billionaire Cargill-MacMillan family — received $500 million from a “special” dividend and a rare $1.5 billion share repurchase completed in December, according to a Fitch Ratings report issued this week.

The post Amid Layoffs, Cargill’s Owners Given $2B In Stock Buybacks/Dividends appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.