Mainland Poultry is selling more than 640ha of land for $78.9 million, which it will then lease back, to free up capital to support growth in the business.
Consent was recently granted under the Overseas Investment Act for the sale to an Australian proprietary company (as trustee for two New Zealand sub trusts) which was owned by CorVal Partners Ltd, a specialist property fund manager incorporated in Australia.
The decision said the applicant would lease the land back to Mainland — New Zealand’s largest egg producer and a major animal feed producer — together with two non-sensitive properties, on separate triple net leases for initial terms of 30 years.
The land included 34ha at Waikouaiti, 50ha at Waianakarua, 213ha at Hillgrove and 62ha at Glenpark, all in Otago, while the remaining land was at Himatangi, Aorangi, Orini, Fernside and Te Awamutu.
The land was used for all aspects of egg and animal feed production and distribution and CorVal intended to fund the next stage of Mainland’s development of the 159ha Huirimu site at Te Awamutu.
That investment was intended to create New Zealand’s largest free range egg laying facility with capacity for 240,000 laying hens and 80,000 rearing hens.
The decision said the main benefits to New Zealand were likely to include at least $12m in capital expenditure developing the Huirimu site, the creation of 40 fulltime positions for an 18-month period during the construction of the next phase of development on the Huirimu site, and additional environmental protects at Huirimu, Hillgrove and Orini.
Mainland built its base farm at Waikouaiti in 1998 and, since then, has grown through a combination of acquisition of existing farms and the building of further capacity to now having production and distribution operations throughout the country.
Eggs have been in the headlines for the past few months as the effects of legislation affected the industry; small egg farmers were having to shift away from cage farming or leave the industry.
In 2012, the government put into place a code of welfare for laying hens with changes to be made within 10 years, which meant battery cages would no longer be legal by the end of 2022. At the time about 84% of producers used the cage method.
- A new forestry investor in New Zealand has been granted consent, through the special forestry test, to acquire a freehold interest in 368ha of land on the Dipton-Castlerock Rd in Southland for $7.7m.
The decision said NZ Forestry Partnership LP was ultimately owned by a trust of whom the beneficiaries were two United Kingdom citizens.
The land, owned by Treebilly Ltd, of which Daniel Gerrard Minehan, of Invercargill, is listed as director by the Companies Office, was mostly planted with young pinus radiata trees and 20ha remained to be planted this year. The applicant planned to continue production forestry on the land, harvesting at 26-28 years.
