Court rejects Crafar farm bid

The High Court at Auckland has rejected a bid by Chinese-backed UBNZ Assets Holdings for a ruling that it does not require Overseas Investment Office (OIO) approval to buy 16 farms from the receivers of Crafar Farms.

Chinese businesswoman May Wang's UBNZ - which is 80 per cent owned by New Zealand-based UBNZ Trustee Ltd and 20 per cent by the Hong Kong-based Natural Dairy (NZ) Holdings Ltd - argued it did not require the OIO's consent to buy the farms from KordaMentha.

But the OIO manager Annelies McClure, said that the OIO considered that consent may be required.

After the court dismissed the UBNZ application for a ruling, Natural Dairy said its plans for dairy acquisitions in New Zealand were unchanged.

"The court's decision does not affect the companies' plans to acquire dairy assets in New Zealand and it will be lodging the relevant OIO applications as intended," a spokesman said.

"Natural Dairy sees no reason to comment further on the court's decision".

Receivers of the 16 Crafar farms have signed a conditional sale agreement with UBNZ, which includes a significant deposit.

The farms were formerly operated by companies involved with Allan, Beth and Frank Crafar, and are located in the Waikato, King Country, Bay of Plenty, Wanganui, Taranaki and Rangitikei.

Separately, Bayleys Real Estate is still marketing them both locally and overseas, and these tenders close on June 23.

State-owned farming company Landcorp is considering whether it might bid for the farms, which have been in receivership since October and range from 128ha to 1750ha in size.

Initially the receivership was said to have involved 24 properties, but some were held by companies other than the four put into receivership, and two leased properties were relinquished.

- NZPA