'For sale' news surprises potential buyer

Australian health supplement company Blackmores has put its hand up to buy Healtheries - if the Auckland health products business is for sale.

Multimillionaire businessman Gary Lane, who has owned Healtheries since 1990, did not return calls yesterday but Blackmores chief Marcus Blackmore had more luck getting through to him.

He rang Lane early yesterday to express good-natured surprise at an Australian Financial Review report that his company topped the list of potential Healtheries' buyers.

"I read it and I though, geez, that's news to me so I rang Gary and he didn't know anything about it [a sale to Blackmores]," Blackmore said.

"We've talked over the years about whether there's things we can do together but certainly of late there's been no discussion.

"I would think if he was going to sell the thing tomorrow then he'd ring me."

If Lane - who is valued at $215 million in the NBR 2004 Rich List - did pick up the phone, Blackmore would be very interested in looking over the books.

"We'd have to be interested [in buying the company]," he said.

"We've looked at buying other companies and we'd love to have a bigger presence in New Zealand. Find me a company to buy."

Blackmore pointed out that Lane had other businesses in New Zealand - including Hansells - and said: "Gary's always a seller of things, that's his nature. So I can't say he's not going to sell his business."

Healtheries' managing director, Sarah Kennedy, was unable to comment and referred queries to Lane.

Any deal has yet to become the subject of market rumours.

"It's not a huge company so it is the kind of thing which could be happening without attracting attention," one investment banker said.

He suggested any sale would be highly unlikely to involve anything public and that Lane would rather seek a private, strategic buyer.

A second possible bidder, as reported by the Australian Financial Review, is Singapore-based food group Cerebos Pacific. Nobody from the company was available to comment yesterday.

Blackmores began in Queensland in the 1930s as the vision of Australian naturopath Maurice Blackmore.

Healtheries is a global exporter, with more than 750 health products on sale worldwide. The company's annual sales exceed $50 million and staff number more than 250 in New Zealand and in Australia.

The business was founded in 1904 by two Auckland flour millers, who spotted a gap in the market for specialty rye and wholemeal flours.

The Australian Financial Review valued the company at A$150 million to A$200 million ($160 million to $213 million).

As the only New Zealand-based supplement manufacturer with a pharmaceutical manufacturing licence, it has strategic value.