OIO delays costing CSR up to $300,000 a day says CEO

Friday 3rd December 2010 1 Comment

The boss of Australian company CSR says delays by this country's Overseas Investment Office are costing CSR up to $A300,000 ($NZ387,900) a day.

The New Zealand regulator has to approve the $A1.75 billion sale of CSR's sugar business Sucrogen to Singapore's Wilmar International, as Sucrogen owns the Auckland sugar refinery.

The sale of Sucrogen to Wilmar received Foreign Investment Review Board approval in Australia early last month.

Retiring CSR chief executive Jeremy Sutcliffe said the situation showed a "remarkable lack of commercial reality" on the part of the OIO, The Australian newspaper reported today.

"If you do the simple mathematics alone, every day of delay is costing CSR shareholders about $A250,000 to $A300,000 in interest foregone on the purchase price," Mr Sutcliffe said.

"But for reasons best known to the OIO and the relevant minister, they have no intention of being rushed or paying heed to obvious commercial realities."

OIO manager Annelies McClure said the regulator continued to assess the application for consent from Wilmar.

"The OIO aims to make a decision on high quality, straightforward applications within 50 working days of the date of registration. However, there is no statutory time frame within which a decision must be made."

NZPA

Comments from our readers

On 3 December 2010 at 10:38 am Antoni said:

Bloody Typical of our bureaucrats!!!