A mostly public council workshop is to be held on Monday and it will be run by Dunedin City Holdings Ltd (DCHL), which has argued the case for a sale is compelling.
Aurora is part of the council’s DCHL group of companies and DCHL directors last month sought an opportunity to respond to public feedback about the proposed sale.
Public sentiment in written submissions and at a hearing was resoundingly against a sale.
Matters DCHL is likely to tackle include debt of the council and its companies, regulatory protection of consumers and "deferred revenue", which relates to income earned that Aurora cannot yet recover from customers.
The council has yet to decide if it will sell Aurora and it has yet to set a date for deliberations.
DCHL has signalled it could fetch a price north of $1 billion.
The proposal includes repaying Aurora’s debt and using leftover sale proceeds to create a diversified investment fund worth "many" hundreds of millions of dollars to generate income for the council.
Council chief executive Sandy Graham said at a meeting this week the workshop on Monday would be held "largely in public" and a "small section" would not be.
The council’s website said the first three parts of the briefing would be livestreamed on the council’s YouTube channel and the fourth part would be closed to the public for commercial reasons.
It was also confirmed at this week’s council meeting that, if Aurora was not sold, the combined debt of the council and its companies was set to breach a $1.6b debt ceiling before the end of the 2025-26 financial year.
Asked questions by Cr Lee Vandervis, DCHL chairman Tim Loan said in this scenario an initial proposal to increase the cap would likely be made early in the 2025-26 financial year.
The cap would need to be lifted before the end of June 2026, Mr Loan confirmed.
Asked by Cr Sophie Barker about Aurora’s improved profitability, Mr Loan said this was partly about its profits previously being not as high as might be expected from "a company of that size and nature".
Monday’s workshop, to be held in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, starts at 10am.
