A leading investment fund in New Zealand has emerged as a potential leading candidate to purchase the country's largest grower, packer and exporter of apples, Mr Apple.
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which is currently looking into the possibility of acquiring a number of prime New Zealand assets including local rural businesses, is reportedly part of a consortium that has already submitted a bid for collapsed New Zealand bank South Canterbury Finance (SCF), which has an 80 per cent shareholding in Mr Apple's parent company Scales Corporation Limited.
Another group, Maori investment group Ngai Tahu, is also understood to be part of the consortium, which submitted the NZ$1.3bn bid to SCF's receivers on 31 August.
The bid was apparently rejected after consultation with the New Zealand Treasury, but a revised offer was subsequently presented to the receivers two weeks later on behalf of Permanent Investments Ltd, the New Zealand Labour Party's David Cunliffe said.
'Potential participants in that recapitalisation included the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and Ngai Tahu,' Mr Cunliffe confirmed.
In the past couple of days, the receivers have appointed Goldman Sachs & Partners New Zealand to manage the sale of Scales and its assets.
The company is one of a number of key holdings set to be sold off following the collapse of SCF; Goldman Sachs NZ has also been drafted in to advise on the sale of another major SCF asset, Helicopters New Zealand (HNZ).
According to New Zealand publication Business Day, both HNZ and Scales are separate from the main finance business of SCF Group and are not in receivership.
Scales' operations include not only Mr Apple but a network of coldstores and a shipping agency business.
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