UPDATED: South Canterbury's Dairy Holdings stake sold for $56.4M to existing shareholders

Friday 3rd February 2012

The receivers of South Canterbury Finance sold the failed finance company’s 33.6 percent stake in Dairy Holdings to existing shareholders and the dairy farm group’s US investors took advantage of the deal to exit their own 25 percent holding.

South Canterbury Finance will receive$56.4 million for its 33.6 percent stake, receivers Kerryn Downey and William Black of McGrath Nicol said in a statement. The deal valued Dairy Holdings at an enterprise value of more than $535 million, they said.

The transaction puts New Zealand’s biggest corporate dairy farmer in the hands of New Zealand shareholders led by Colin Armer, Alan Pye and interests associated with Humphry Rolleston.

Downey and Black have already sold a range of SCF assets. The government had to pay $1.7 billion to depositors and debenture holders and wants to get as much of the money back as it can.

The Dairy Holdings farms are mostly in North Otago and Canterbury. The company has associations with a total of 72 farms, when support farms are included.

The dairy farms cover 14,243 hectares and milk 43,992 cows to produce approximately 15.18 million kilograms of milk solids a year.First NZ Capital advised the receivers on the sale and worked with Murray and Co who acted for the US shareholders.

(BusinessDesk)

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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