Silver Fern plans 50:50 deal with Chinese
Silver Fern Farms' board plans a 50:50 partnership with China's leading meat processor Shanghai Maling, a listed company based in Shanghai, owned 38% by Bright Food Group.
The chairman of the Te Hape B Trust, Hardie Pene, told Dairy News the response from the Chinese is “a kick in the guts” for his people.
Te Hape B Trust, located near Bennydale, King Country, has made several bids to buy the farms, originally owned by Allan Crafar. The trust was in a Sir Michael Fay-led consortium which previously sought to buy the farms.
Pene says although the farms have been in private ownership for many years they have been sought by his people because their ancestor Rereahu had a pa site there. He says the lands were originally owned by his people but lost during the 1800s through land acquisition.
Pene says on the basis of what’s happened he concludes Shanghai Pengxin “did not act in good faith”.
“They invited us to put in an offer. They emailed us saying there had to be one offer, and one offer only, and it was not open to negotiation. So we then undertook valuations they and Landcorp were well aware of. We also went onto the farms to do due diligence in January and February and we incurred quite a lot of expense which they were well aware of.”
Pene says he now thinks it was an academic exercise by Shanghai Pengxin to say they had invited Te Hape to make a bid. He says this is not a good look. “To me when you look back at Sir Henry van der Hayden’s comments ‘don’t trust them’ (the Chinese), he hit the nail on the head,” he says.
Pene says their offer for the two farms was based on an independent valuation and they did not undercut this in any way in their bid. He says all he’s had from Shanghai Pengxin is an email saying basically “no deal”.
Attempts last week to get a comment from Shanghai Pengxin proved unsuccessful.
