The trading halt may be in place until April 27.

Murray Goulburn warned in February that global dairy commodity prices had continued to decline in the wake of a drop in Chinese imports of dairy ingredients, the Russian embargo on dairy imports and increased mik supply from Europe.

More recently, the MG Unit Trust was one of a number of Australian agricultural stocks to suffer share price slumps in mid-April when China announced changes to import tax rules.

But Murray Goulburn has since confirmed its UHT milk and milk powder is exempt from tax changes.

At the release of its half-year results in February, Murray Goulburn said that given a farmgate milk price of $5.60 per kilogram, it expected to generate a full-year profit for 2015/16 of about $63 million, which was below previous forecasts.

Although Murray Goulburn expected dairy prices to recover, this was taking longer than expected due to an ongoing oversupply in dairy commodity markets, the co-operative said at the time.

As a result of the weak dairy commodity prices, the co-operative’s ingredients and nutritional business was expected to underperform, but that was expected to be partially offset by the growth of the dairy foods segment.

The MG Unit Trust is a special-purpose funding vehicle which provides its unitholders with an economic exposure to the business of Murray Goulburn.

Units in MG Unit Trust last traded at $2.14.

AAP