Shares redeemed
Following completion of Shanghai Maling Aquarius Company's $57 million investment, Silver Fern Farms (SFF) will redeem the 5,371,732 supplier investment shares issued by the co-operative. Shareholders can check their holding details on the company's share registry, Link Market Services at https://investorcentre.linkmarketservices.co.nz, although they do not need to take any action in order to surrender their supplier investment shares to receive the redemption payment. The co-operative will pay $1 for each supplier investment share cancelled. Payment is expected to be made on January 13.
Robotics collaboration
Collaboration between the University of Auckland and the University of Stuttgart in areas including robotics and control engineering is expected to improve the development of functions such as fully automatic apple picking or meat cutting by machines which at present can damage soft materials or tissues they are handling. A new International Research Training Group will train 10 PhD researchers from each university, with the work in Auckland supervised by 10 professors and academics from the Faculty of Engineering and Auckland Bioengineering Institute.
Bill passes third reading
The New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Amendment Bill passed its third reading in Parliament last week. The bill aims to improve entry and exit requirements, and provide more efficient methods for the authority to collect fees and levies from producers and exporters. Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said growers and exporters of horticultural products like avocados, summerfruit and buttercup squash would be able to better target their marketing strategies to different markets. The changes follow consultation with the Horticulture Export Authority and the nine product groups which use this export framework.