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Foreign investment in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Overseas Investment Office - June 2023 Decision

NZ's Largest Egg Producer Sold

RF CorVal NZ Pty Ltd (as trustee for RF CorVal NZ Sub Trust 2 and RF CorVal NZ Sub Trust 3) Australia (97.5%) Various: (2.5%) has been approved to buy Mainland Poultry Limited and certain of its wholly owned subsidiaries, being Mainland Poultry Canterbury Limited, Natural Chicken Company Limited and Mainland Poultry Investments No. 3 Limited New Zealand: (27.71%), United States: (20.87%); United Kingdom: (10.40%) Cayman Islands: (8.51%) Various: (32.51%).

The price is $78,900.000 and involves buying of freehold interests in approximately:

  1. 34.0989 hectares of land located at 13 Matanaka Drive, Waikouaiti, Otago;
  2. 49.5982 hectares of land located at 157 McKerrow Road, Waianakarua, Otago;
  3. 14.1641 hectares of land located at 91, 107 and 109 Rangiotu Road, Himatangi;
  4. 213.4773 hectares of land at 1403 and 1541 Horse Range Road and 26 Haven Street, Hillgrove, Otago (the Hillgrove Site);
  5. 4.9630 hectares of land at 973-975 Camerons Line, Aorangi;
  6. 62.7846 hectares of land at 35 and 69 Pilbrow Road, Glenpark, Otago;
  7. 106.27161 hectares of land at 64 Old Road, Orini, South Auckland (the Orini Site);
  8. 7.1603 hectares of land at 328 Oxford Road, Fernside, Canterbury; and
  9. 159.2310 hectares of land at 116 Huirimu Road, Te Awamutu (the Huirimu Site),
    10. collectively referred to as 'the Land'.

The OIO says: "The Applicant is an Australian proprietary company (as trustee for two New Zealand sub trusts) and is 100% owned by CorVal Partners Limited, a specialist property fund manager incorporated in Australia ... The Vendor is New Zealand's largest egg producer and a major animal feed producer. The Vendor wishes to release the capital tied up in the ownership of the Land to support a greater level of growth in the business. The Applicant intends to fund the next stage of the Vendor's development of the Huirimu Site. The investment is intended to create New Zealand's largest free range egg laying facility with capacity for 240,000 laying hens and 80,000 rearing hens".

"The Overseas Investment Office has approved the sale of 650 hectares of land owned by Mainland Poultry to Australian property investor CorVal Partners. The sale will help fund Mainland's expansion efforts. Mainland is owned by Indus Valley, which operates the egg operation under the Zeagold brand. The sale was for nine parcels of land spread across sites in Otago, Canterbury and Waikato".

"According to a Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) decision, CorVal Partners would lease the land back to Mainland on separate triple net leases for initial terms of 30 years" (Stuff, 1/8/23).

There was a chronic shortage of eggs in the first few months of 2023 and those that were available were very expensive. This was nothing to do with covid or supply chain issues. Battery hen farmers had had ten years to prepare for the Government ban on battery hen farming that came into effect at the beginning of 2023. And they had not done so. Nor had they anticipated that supermarkets, their biggest customers, would not accept the chook farmers' compromise method (halfway between battery farming and free range). So, only now are they getting their act together and switching to free range hen farming, which is what the NZ public wants.

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