KEY POINTS:
A&R Whitcoulls' $138 million deal to buy Borders was one of the largest overseas transactions approved in the latest round of decisions by New Zealand's foreign investment watchdog. The Overseas Investment Office has released details of this deal for the US-controlled Pacific Equity Partners Fund IV, which owns bookseller Whitcoulls, to buy Borders.
Another big deal was the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's $126 million purchase of a stake in development of the Lion Nathan site in Newmarket. The authority's Haumi Development Partnership got consent to buy half the project with AMP Private Equity Real Estate Fund II. A $1 billion mini-village is planned on the 5ha city site. Contact Energy, 43 per cent Australian-owned, got clearance to buy 45ha of Taupo land for $4 million from Landcorp Farming.
A number of large deals were approved but the prices must remain suppressed. Australia's BHP Billiton was cleared to buy land from Rio Tinto.
Even though the takeover was ditched last month, BHP got consent to buy 114ha of Westland property, 125ha of Marsden Point land, 8ha of Tawa land, 1072ha of Invercargill land. Also suppressed was the price offered by Australia's PF Olsen Tisa, the trustee for Timberland Fund II, to A C Forestry of New Zealand
to buy 217ha of Gisborne land. Sauvage Family Vineyard of the US was cleared to buy 7.4ha of land near Cromwell from the Meehans of New Zealand for a secret sum.
