Mainfreight offers olive branch to Toll

By PAM GRAHAM

New Zealand logistics company Mainfreight has offered an olive branch to rival Toll Holdings.

Mainfreight managing director Don Braid and chairman Bruce Plested said they would get around the table with Toll if Toll sold Mainfreight the 12 per cent stake it had in Owens.

Toll, which controls national rail operator Toll NZ, bought the stake last year, blocking Mainfreight's full takeover. Mainfreight now has 79.6 per cent.

Braid said the hostile action of buying the stake was no way to do business in New Zealand.

"And if they carry on that way we won't see a lot of freight going to rail," he told shareholders at Mainfreight's annual meeting on Thursday.

Braid said the first quarter of this current financial year would see modest gains from the core business of Mainfreight.

The company's first quarter is its quietest and he did not give a full-year forecast.

Braid said that Toll had not yet improved the rail service to any large extent.