The winding up of Rural Portfolio Investments by receivers is almost complete with the sale yesterday of its last significant asset, 10 million shares in New Zealand Farming Systems Uruguay.
The shares sold for 41c each, at the top end of the price range they have traded at in recent months.
The sale was yesterday hailed by brokers as a successful placement.
This completes the sell down of major assets held by Rural Portfolio Investments (RPI) after it sold two tranches of shares in PGG Wrightson in the past month for $27 million, before receivers were called in, and last week when receivers sold 46.8 million shares for $24.3 million.
Those sales involved 48.4 million shares for 56c and 46.8 million for 52c each.
In addition to that revenue, the receivers also have $742,318 in cash in the dividend escrow account.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said given that receivers Kerryn Downey and Andrew Grenfell, of McGrathNicol, did not have the option of an in-species distribution - distributing the underlying asset value in proportion to the bonds held by investors - they had made the best of the situation.
Earlier this month, the assets of Rural Portfolio Capital Ltd (RPC) and RPI, companies owned by Dunedin's McConnon family and Craig Norgate, were placed in receivership after RPC announced it had breached its security trust deed.
The $60 million of preference shares held by the companies were backed by $29.64 million of assets and RPI could not find $1.45 million needed for its dividend escrow account, which constituted an enforcement event under the trust deed.
Mr Timms said the speed of the asset sale had minimised costs but more significant were the prices achieved, especially for the NZFSU shares.
"It's a pretty reasonable placement when you look at where they have traded in the last month, from a low of 37c to a high of 41c."
The stake was equivalent to 4% of NZFSU's capital yet its placement did not cause a share price correction.
The market response could be due to a wish for investors to be exposed to New Zealand agriculture, especially dairying, which was only possible through PGG Wrightson and NZFSU, Mr Timms said.
The NZFSU share price has also been lacklustre, and Mr Timms said investors obviously saw more value in the stock than the share price showed.
RPI director Alan McConnon declined to comment.
It has been a tough few months for the McConnons and Mr Norgate, with their company's financial problems and all three of them resigning from various positions on the board of PGG Wrightson, with Alan McConnon the last to do so earlier this month.
