Bid withdrawn!
Forever Farming NZ has withdrawn its bid to buy Mangaohane Station, the 4800ha central North Island property for sale by international tender.
An organisation called Forever Farming NZ – headed by farming leader Mike Barham – was set up and seeking investors to buy the 5,000 hectare Mangaohane Station, just off the Napier-Taupo highway, which is up for sale by international tender.
The farm winters around 40,000 stock units on a sheep to cattle ratio of 2 to 1 and is estimated to be worth in the vicinity of $45 million.
However, almost as quickly as the call went out for investors, the plan had to be pulled. Barham blames the Information Memorandum prepared for the sale of the station, which did not include full disclosure of two important issues.
It has been revealed that a claim on Mangaohane Station was lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal in late 2019 by a local Māori Trust. The same trust also wants to register an easement to formalise passage through the station to land it owns at the rear of the property, which is not accessible directly by road.
“To say I’m incredibly disappointed is an understatement, but we can’t proceed any further with our bid,” Barham told Rural News. “These two developments, particularly the Waitangi Tribunal claim, add too much risk and uncertainty for a syndicate investment like we had planned. Sadly, we’ll have to back away.”
Barham says he still cannot believe that the real estate agents for the sale of the property could omit such an important disclosure in such a high profile international tender. He says not knowing this at the start cost him and others both time and money.
He was confident Forever Farming NZ would have raised sufficient cash to buy Mangaohane Station. Barham says he’s been stunned by the level of support from people from cities and towns right across the country and from within the farming community.
“We’ve got commitments for tens of millions of dollars from hundreds of people who believed in what we were doing,” he added. “They will be gutted because they wanted to join with us in making a stand at Mangaohane to stop the slide of so much of our hill country into permanent forest for carbon.”
Barham has met with members of the trust and says they want Mangaohane Station to remain a livestock farming business.
“I wish them well and hope they achieve the same outcome we wanted for Mangaohane.”
