Overseas buyers take less of NZ

Overseas Investment Commission approvals for foreign investments have fallen by $1.1 billion.

The commission approved $2 billion of such investments in the first five months of this year, compared with $3.1 billion for the same period last year.

It approved the sale of 7126ha of land, compared with 181,319ha.

In the latest batch of decisions for May, the largest application approved was News Corp's $554.7 million deal to buy media assets.

News, 45 per cent owned by Americans and 29 per cent by Australians, was cleared to buy 45 per cent of Merger Co 2005, the vehicle for the amalgamated assets of INL and Sky Network Television.

News already owned 43 per cent of INL, which owned 78 per cent of Sky.

The next largest deal cleared was listed landlord ING Property Trust Holdings' application to spend $286 million buying rival landlord Urbus Properties. The trust is half owned by Symphony Investments of New Zealand and half owned by ING NZ, whose shares are owned by ING (Australia). The trust is the fourth- largest property fund listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange.

Also approved was the $5.6 million sale of the New Zealand-owned Premier Books business. The importer and distributor of books, gifts and stationery is being sold to Britain's Quarto Group.

Among other purchases approved:

* A $4.9 million deal for British-owned Allied Domecq Wines (NZ) to buy 29ha of Marlborough land.

* Europeans Farhad Vladi and Andreas Fellmann's plan to buy 8ha of Blenheim land from Kenneth and Elisabeth Prain for $2.9 million.

* Interests associated with Australia's Macquarie Goodman, for three property deals worth $2.1 million in total, all in Penrose, Auckland. The purchases will enable Macquarie Goodman interests to expand The Gate, a large building project on Neilson St in Penrose.

* Australasian brewer Lion Nathan's buying of 25 per cent of a vineyard in a deal involving 258ha of Marlborough land.

* Americans William and Rebecca Allen to buy 348ha of land at Golden Bay for $850,000.

* Canada's Morton Estate Wines to buy 44ha of Marlborough land for $839,756.

However, Australians Peter and Suzanne Falk were refused consent to buy 25ha of Motueka land for $740,000 because the deal was not in the national interest.