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Foreign investment in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Overseas Investment Office - January 2017 Decisions

Norwegian Company Buys NZ Packhouse Technology

TOMRA Sorting AS, a wholly owned subsidiary of TOMRA Systems ASA, (various overseas 38%, Investment AB Latour, Sweden 26%, Norwegian Public 20%, Swedish Public 9%; Folketrygdfondet, Norway 6.44%) has consent to acquire rights or interests in up to 100% of the issued share capital of Compac Holdings Ltd (Hamish Kennedy, Kim Kennedy and Brian Leaning, NZ 75%, Gavin Reeve, Victoria Reeve and Brian Leaning, NZ 10%, David Buys, Christina Buys and Glaister Ennor Trustee Co Ltd, NZ 9%, various NZ 5%, various overseas 1.4%), at a cost that may exceed $100m.

There will be an initial investment of $70 million, with additional payments potentially up to $230 million. The overseas investment transaction has satisfied the criteria in section 18 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005. TOMRA provides sensor-based belt and chute sorting systems in food, recycling, mining and other industries. It began in Norway in the 1970s with “reverse vending machines” that recognised and sorted empty beer bottles. By the 1990s its optical machines handled full container and recycling chains, and expanded to sorting systems for food, tobacco, waste recycling, mining and material recovery.

Compac Holdings Ltd is an Auckland-based company that provides turn-key packhouse technology to automatically sort fruit or vegetables. Despite its 2016 revenue of $152 million, Compac was making losses due to over-extension in fast growing areas of its business (Pattrick Smellie, NBR, 1/3/17). Acquiring Compac will allow Tomra to expand into the fast-growing lane sorting sector.

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NZ Lifestyle

Michael Robert Mayger (Australia 100%) has consent to acquire 17 hectares of land at Redwood Valley, Redwood Valley Road, Tasman District from PAH & S Sheriff (NZ 100%), for $1.78 million.

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