Ikea deal approved: Overseas Investment Office consents to purchase, opening date out

It's a land deal - with a side serving of meatballs along with a little secrecy.

Swedish homeware giant Ikea has won consent to buy Auckland land for its New Zealand debut.

The Overseas Investment Office has just released the decision where consent was granted for the business which is famous for its in-house meatball servings.

But the price it will pay for its slice of Sylvia Park has been suppressed.

"Cost of commencing business" appears as withheld under the Official Information Act. No dollar signs there.

The entity buying the land is Ikea New Zealand and the vendor is listed as 'not applicable' although it's NZX listed landlord Kiwi Property Group because that has announced how it intended to sell its land to the European business.

"The property on which the business is expected to be established is located adjacent to the Sylvia Park Shopping Centre on Carbine Road and Clemow Drive, Mount Wellington. The property is not sensitive land for the purposes of the Overseas Investment Act," the decision sheet out today said.

Meatballs are said by some fans to be "heavenly" and draw customers nearly as much as the curated rooms with on-trend home decor at reasonable prices.

The Overseas Investment Office was satisfied that the investor test has been met.

The retail home furnishing and distribution business will be established "with an opening date in December 2024", the decision said.

Approval was won under the significant business investment asset category and lawyer Andrew Monteith of Minter Ellison Rudd Watts acted for Ikea New Zealand.

The Herald reported last week on how land vendor Kiwi had released the first image of how Ikea's inaugural New Zealand store will look.

Kiwi said it had struck the deal with the European giant to sell it 3.2ha of land on Te Ahoterangi Rise, east of the existing Sylvia Park shopping centre.

Ikea's site is directly opposite the back of Farmers, beside The Warehouse, but on the other side of the train tracks from the existing Sylvia Park centre.

A new image in the investor presentation showed the blue store on the Mt Wellington site, with a car park and landscaping out the front. The Ikea sale was listed under "intensifying mixed-use assets: transforming Sylvia Park".

Kiwi has also announced it pushed up bottom-line profit 14 per cent partly because of big property revenue rises from an expanded Auckland shopping centre and revaluation boosts.

One of the largest listed landlords, it has reported a strong performance, announcing it has pushed up last year's $196.5 million net profit after tax to $224.3m for the March 31 years.

Its big real estate portfolio rose in value $99.8m last year but $120.5m this year.