For much of its early history, it was a government-run and owned company. However, from July 1999, its board was restructured into a private company. It offered "class A" shares to those who meet its definition of "growers" and who had the ability to elect the majority of its board and chairperson, and from August 2001, 'class B' were publicly traded on the Australian Stock Exchange. In 2008, constitutional amendments were passed. Despite resistance from several wheat lobbies and industry groups, it consolidated ownership of AWB into one type of share, giving growers no special consideration. This change was proposed by the AWB management as necessarily to having a simpler, lower-risk business model.