Green by name, not by nature

It wasn't enough for Auckland multi-millionaire investor Ross Green to walk away with Fletcher Forests' trees in one of the property plays of the decade.

Last night, he was also to receive applause, a trophy and a taste of blue swimmer crab remoulade with organic soba noodle and avocado salad - the entree at Sydney's swank Park Hyatt hotel.

Scott St John, CEO of First NZ Capital, was to take the stage with Green to collect the investment bank's award from FinanceAsia - a Hong Kong magazine and website - for the best New Zealand deal of 2004.

It is a new category in the awards for capital market deals.

"We hear they're coming out by private jet, we don't know whose," said executive editor Cherie Marriott.

The canny consortium of Kiwi Forests - including Green, Trevor Farmer, Mark Wyborn and Adrian Burr - emerged with a 106,000ha forestry estate for $725 million.

That was despite Fletcher Forests earlier signing an exclusive deal with another bidder with $17 million in break fees.

Selling the cutting rights left the four with a lucrative landbank for deals such as one with state-owned Landcorp for 26,000ha of farm conversions.

FinanceAsia says First NZ Capital executed a daring bid, stitching together four transactions - including debt financing and the sale of cutting rights - to leave freehold land and no forestry exposure.

"The cunning and timing" meant that the equity needed was minimised.

The other entries: Pumpkin Patch float (Goldman Sachs JBWere), Fisher & Paykel placement (UBS), Powerco acquisition (Babcock & Brown and others), Carter Holt Harvey tissue business sale (First NZ Capital) and Origin Energy taking control of Contact Energy (Deutsche Bank).