With the Court of Appeal rejecting an attempt by the Sir Michael Fay consortium to stop the sale to Shanghai Pengxin, the long-running saga appears to be nearing its end.
A spokesperson for the consortium told Rural News it would not appeal. It also seems unlikely an iwi group will appeal to the Supreme Court given the wording in the judgment from the Court of Appeal.
Irrespective of this, little action is likely until the lapse of the 20 days allowed for the filing of an appeal. Shanghai Pengxin is likely then to indicate it will settle and has a further 30 days to do so.
The farms will be owned by a wholly owned subsidiary of Shanghai Pengxin called Milk New Zealand Holding Ltd. Below that will sit the 50/50 joint-venture company involving Landcorp called Milk New Zealand Farm Management Ltd.
Landcorp chief executive Chris Kelly says he’s delighted with the latest judgment from the Court of Appeal. Plans are well in hand to take over and manage the farms but he says there are some limiting factors.
“Because of the time delays that have gone on, the receivers have signed up the existing sharemilkers for another year so they are in place until the end of May 2013,” he told Rural News.
“We will take over the oversight management of those farms and keep those existing sharemilkers in place. During the year we will [talk] with them about whether they want to work for Landcorp or move on. So by the end of May 2013 we’ll be in a position to take over all the staff as well.”
Kelly says a special team in Landcorp will look after the farms. The receivers have also employed staff to look after the farms, one of whom is a former Landcorp employee.
“We’ll look to those staff in the first instance and see if they want to switch from working for the receivers to working for us and if they do we’ll take them on board. In any event we have our own staff available.”
Once Pengxin takes ownership of the farms Landcorp will start spending some of the $16 million Pengxin has set aside for upgrading the properties provided this doesn’t interfere with their day-to-day running.
“Our immediate priority will be to check that all the compliance issues are ok – making sure all the effluent ponds are as they should be and that sort of stuff. Then we’ll start regular upgrades of the farms including fencing, subdivision, water, re-grassing, fertiliser – all the sorts of things you do when you upgrade farms.”
