Apple Fields prepares to reappear in different guise

Failed corporate orchardist turned mineral explorer Apple Fields wants to revive itself yet again, this time by taking on the guise of a residential property developer.

The company is promising to strike a deal with major shareholders Tom and Charles Kain "over possible property development options" and hopes to issue new shares to fund the transaction.

The penny-dreadful Christchurch corporate, which yesterday held its AGM, said it could not go on making losses and keep on watching shareholder funds dwindle.

"We're not far off being a shelf company, but not by intention," said director Mark Schroeder. "It's not going to get any worse, but it couldn't get much worse."

Admitting the company, whose shares trade at less than 3c, had been "a little quiet lately", Schroeder disclosed Apple Fields had plans for South Island residential development work but could not say how much money it hoped to raise.

Three directors and five shareholders attended yesterday's AGM, said Schroeder, who was accompanied by fellow director Justin Prain and chairman Gordon Stewart.

Tom and Charles Kain and their siblings have been fighting for a family inheritance from their elderly Hawkes Bay uncle. This week, Justice Graham Panckhurst ruled mainly for the Kains in the High Court at Christchurch, but said the family should sort out the five-year squabble among themselves.

The Kains want their 79-year-old uncle, Tom Couper, removed from his controlling position in the family trusts overseeing the family's estimated $70 million farming fortune. Their $88,000 listed entity is struggling to awaken corporate vigour.

Apple Fields has gone through various changes in the past decade, pulling up its Christchurch trees and turning its back on orchards, selling the land and becoming involved in a mineral exploration venture in Australia and the United States.

But Schroeder said the company had been a property developer all along. It had no website because it could not justify the expense.

"We've got a number of things going for us," he said, listing accumulated tax loss write-offs, its listing on the sharemarket and residential developments, which he promised would soon pay off.

Apple Fields made a $225,000 loss last year and this year lost $30,000. Its performance has seen shareholder funds whittled back from $42,000 to just $12,000 by the end of September.

"While the company retains sufficient funds in its bank account to continue at the present minimal level of activity for a limited period, baring any unforseen contingency, the directors are mindful that the company cannot continue on this basis and that the position must be addressed," the company said.

The only "way forward" was to issue shares.