Second trot around property block

Last week's land swap deal between Trans Tasman Properties and Jamie Peters of Starline Group was the second time the two have traded real estate.

The $100 million sale of Trans Tasman Properties' Finance Centre buildings included a $58 million deal with Peters, of which $16.5 million was a real estate swap.

If the deal settles in April, Peters will get Brookfields House, the Simpson Grierson Building and the Finance Carpark.

In return, Trans Tasman will get a Herne Bay house, a Gulf Harbour house section and 11 lifestyle blocks in Canterbury.

The first swap between the two was in June 2000 when Peters exchanged his lease on a 22,000 sq m site in the Viaduct Harbour for Trans Tasman's DEKA building in Hamilton and Eagle Technology House in Wellington.

For nearly four years, Trans Tasman did not begin work on its viaduct site.

It was not until this year that Trans Tasman secured a tenant for the land, announcing it would build a $60 million national headquarters for Air New Zealand.

Peters has made his biggest mark so far at Gulf Harbour on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula north of Auckland and the Quay Park precinct of disused railway land owned by Ngati Whatua.

In 2001, his Starline Group bought 100ha of Gulf Harbour land for $55 million from a company owned by Singaporean investor Goh Cheng Liang, the project's founder.

After Gulf Harbour, Peters turned to the fringes of Auckland's CBD.

Last year, he was reported to have $350 million of real estate development work on there.

His project centred on the weighty East on Quay development, which included a $75 million office/carpark project spread across 3.3ha of leasehold land.

He planned eight blocks of apartments totalling between 800 and 900 units and a hotel. A six-level 540-space carpark was projected in 2002 to be worth $15 million on completion.

Peters' brother Mat got permission to build the 132-unit Hudson Brown apartments nearby.

But it was reported early this winter that the Inland Revenue Department had applied to wind up eight of Jamie Peters' companies - Kia Kaha, Kev Investments, Catlow Developments, Stirling Enterprises, Wellington City Investments, Gulf Corp Management, Owensby Investments and Eagle Property Investments.

By August, Rob Hucker, acting for the eight companies, said substantial progress had been made towards resolving substantive issues.

Despite the size of his property developments, Peters has consistently refused to talk publicly about his deals, assigning scant publicity to various underlings who have since left the company.

Peters and financier Bridgecorp sold Sydney's First Class Baggage 2.8ha of land between Cook, Wellesley, Morton, Nelson and Sale streets in Auckland, allowing plans for a $600 million apartment project to be launched by Doug Rikard-Bell this year.