NZX lays down law to Apple Fields over filing

The New Zealand Exchange has threatened to suspend Apple Fields - the failed corporate orchardist turned mineral explorer - for not filing its annual report for the year to September 30.

The tiny company, which last month unveiled plans to reinvent itself as a property developer, will be suspended if it does not publish a report by Wednesday.

No staff could be contacted for comment at the company's Christchurch head office yesterday.

Apple Fields has gone through various changes in the past decade, pulling up its Christchurch trees and turning its back on orchards, selling the land and becoming involved in a mineral exploration in Australia and the United States.

But at the December annual meeting, director Mark Schroeder said the company had been a property developer all along.

"We're not far off being a shelf company, but not by intention," he said at the time. "It's not going to get any worse, but it couldn't get much worse."

Admitting the company, whose shares trade at less than 5c, had been "a little quiet lately", Schroeder disclosed plans for South Island residential development work but could not say how much money it hoped to raise.

Apple Fields made a $225,000 loss in 2003 and last year lost $30,000. Its performance has seen shareholder funds whittled back from $42,000 to just $12,000 by the end of September.

"While the company retains sufficient funds in its bank account to continue at the present minimal level of activity for a limited period, baring any unforseen contingency, the directors are mindful that the company cannot continue on this basis and that the position must be addressed," the company said.