Borthwick requesting approval for bid

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 23

Borthwick requesting approval for bid

PA Wellington.! Thomas Borthwick andl’ Sons, Ltd, was yesterday ex-|j pected to deliver a formal |l request to the Minister of/ Agriculture (Mr Maclntyre) for approval to make a bid ’ for the Gear Meat Company, < Ltd. t The request for approval 1 would then be referred to i the Meat Board, Meat In- i ’dustry Authority and the 1 .Overseas Investment Comjmission. ( j With the Meat Industry (Authority committed t i through to the end of June, 1 I any early decision seems | unlikely. I j Borthwick’s are still wait- : ing for approval from the Overseas Investment Com- 1 mission and the boards of i the two companies, for their t take-over of the Co-oper-ative Wholesale Society’s 1 Longburn freezing works. , Ironically, one of the fac-i tors delaying them before the Meat Industry Authority I will be two of" their own < earlier applications for in- < creases in killing capacity, i at Longburn and Waingawa. s One application is to increase Waingawa from three ( mutton chains to five, and 1 Ito add an extra chain to the < three existing at Longburn. 1 The managing director of

Gear, Mr L. A. Cameron,: t was in Fiji last Monday if when Borthwick’s announcedjs its bid for Gear. He arrivedif back in Wellington on Satur-| day. ) t Last Thursday, Borth- t wick’s sent its managing- r director (Mr P. T. Norman) c to meet with Federated '<■ Farmers’ leaders from the region, supplying both com- £ panies’ southern North Island works. i< This Thursday Mr Cam- 1 eron will see them. ' The Federation is cautious!' about committing itself on)’ the take-over. )I “We are waiting for all I the information first,” a'spokesman said yesterday. Il Maybe, but it would not i be surprising if all the prov- I inces found some difficulty arriving at a consensus. * Just where all this has ’ left the Meat Industry '< Authority is difficult to s work out. i Traditionally, the Meat Board does not encourage * overseas companies at the t expense of local ones, but it is in favour of bigger, < stronger companies. t Gear’s substantial real 11 estate holdings pose a prob-i ( lem with overseas land-1' owning regulations as far asj Borthwick’s are concerned, is But, the company has said't

that if successful it is pre- 1 pared to dispose of some! sections of the Gear company. Mr Cameron confirmed, that Borthwick’s had offered) to sell its Feilding and Waingawa works to the Gear company some 18 months) ago. The Gear company did not; accept the offer. He also said more recent) discussions between the two! companies had traversed the whole question of rational-) isation in the southern) North Island but these, too, had broken down. Both Mr Cameron and Mr Norman were yesterday guarded in discussing the future of Gear’s Petone plant. Mr Cameron said eventually he could see the day when Petone was primarily a processing works using stock slaughtered at other works. Mr Norman said, in differ- . ent words, much the same' thing. i He said he could see thej Gear works staying at Petone for some time yet but) perhaps fulfilling slightly) different functions from) what it did now. Meat industry sources are) scratching their heads over) the battle.