Aust. company buys half Aulsebrooks

Press, 4 November 1983, Page 8

Aust. company buys half Aulsebrooks

PA Wellington A major Australian biscuitmaker, Arnotts, Ltd, will buy a 50 per cent shareholding in the Goodman Group subsidiary, Aulsebrooks, Ltd.

The move, which has been approved by the New Zealand Overseas Investment Commission, opens up opportunities for the new joint-venture company under the Closer Economic Relations agreement, a Goodman’s Group statement said yesterday. “Arnotts, which is wholly Australian owned, enjoys a major share of the Australian biscuit market and will make a significant contribution in technical and product development areas,” said Goodman Group’s managing director, Mr Peter

Shirtcliffe. “While it is too early for specific plans to be formulated it is responsible to assume that Arnotts biscuits will at some stage become available on the New Zealand market.”

Similarly, it was possible that certain types of biscuits made in New Zealand could be sold in Australia through or with the help of Arnotts, he said. “We believe the ArnottsAulsebrooks joint venture is typical of the kind of transTasman co-operation which C.E.R. was set up to encourage.” Mr Shirtcliffe said Arnotts would pay cash for its 50 per cent of Aulsebrooks capital. The funds realised from the transaction would be redeployed in other

Goodman Group activities. No price was included in the statement. Growth prospects after the association with Arnotts, were expected to enhance employment opportunities, it said. Aulsebrooks at present employs approximately 500 people. Aulsebrooks’ head office is at its biscuit manufacturing plant in Auckland. Confectionery products are made in Christchurch. Aulsebrooks was wholly based in Christchurch until 1979, when it was sold by A.B. Consolidated, Ltd, to the Goodman Group. The Goodman Group first acquired an interest in Aulsebrooks in 1976 and took a controlling interest a year later.