Wattie plans upset in Australia

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33033, 28 September 1972, Page 22

Wattie plans upset in Australia

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, September 27. Australian Government finance regulations have forced Wattie Industries, Ltd, to take a smaller shareholding than originally forecast in its joint Australian operation with British Tobacco (Australia), Ltd.

For putting up $2,932,243 of the total invested capital in the venture of $11,272,859, Wattie will receive 26 per cent of the shareholding. British Tobacco, which recently acquired the Melbourne based frozen-vege-table processor, Pict, Ltd, has invested $8,345,616. The chairman of Wattie Industries (Sir James Wattie) said that his company would retain equal representation on the board of the new company, Wattie Pict, Ltd, with British Tobacco. Wattie’s investment in the company was by way of cash and the assets of its four-year-old Australian subsidiary, J. Wattie Canneries, Ltd.

The assets of this company were valued at $750,000, but $350,000 of this is in stock exported from New Zealand and the money received for this would have to be returned to this country, as required by New Zealand financial regulations.

“The deal is satisfactory at this stage, but it is not yet what we originally intended. It is likely that the Australian regulations will be relaxed in the future and our arrangement with British Tobacco is to increase our shareholding to 50 per cent at that time. “I would like to stress that, at the moment, there are no

shares involved in the transaction, although when we come to purchase the outstanding 24 per cent this will be done with shares,” said Sir James Wattie.