New Zealand Sugar, owner of the Chelsea brand, was founded in the early 1880s as a partnership between Australia's Victorian Sugar Company and a number of prominent Auckland businessmen.
They included David Nathan, founder of retailer LD Nathan, two-time New Zealand Premier Sir Frederick Whittaker, William Scott Wilson, whose father founded the New Zealand Herald and Alfred Horton, who merged his newspaper, the Southern Cross, with the Herald in 1876.
Its refinery, the only one in New Zealand, was built in 1883 and has operated ever since at its original Duck Creek site in Birkenhead.
The company was absorbed by CSR's forerunner, the Colonial Refining Company, several years later in a transaction that saw the local owners receive shares in Colonial.
As a result a large number of CSR shares are still held by New Zealanders.
New Zealand Sugar reported a net profit of $16 million on revenue of $197 million in the 12 months to March 31 last year.
Big names of 19th century behind sugar refinery
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