Meat firm will not be cut up

Hawke's Bay Meat, the new major shareholder of New Zealand's biggest meat exporter, Hastings-based Richmond, says it has no intention of breaking up the company.

Dunedin-based meat processor Primary Producers Co-operative Society had to sell its 36 per cent holding in Richmond after it was found that its February 1999 share deal breached Richmond's constitution.

On Friday, PPCS sold its 36 per cent holding in Richmond to Hawke's Bay Meat, a unit of Active Equities, founded by former Brierley Investments executives Bruce Hancox, Paul Collins and Patsy Reddy.

Mr Hancox is a director of Hawke's Bay Meat, which is believed to have paid PPCS $2 a share, or a total of $29.3 million.

Mr Collins said Hawke's Bay Meat had no intention of breaking up Richmond, which is confident of returning to a full-year profit this year and perhaps listing on the Stock Exchange.

"No one ever made money breaking up the meat industry," he said.

Breaking up companies had been the business philosophy of the 60s and 70s, but Mr Collins said that during his last 10 years with Brierley's, it had made its money by expanding the companies it was involved in, such as Air New Zealand, Carter Holt, Sky City and Sealord.

PPCS chief executive Stewart Barnett said the co-operative would file a notice to say it had sold its shares to Hawke's Bay Meat.

- NZPA