Carter H. pursues Aust, addition

Press, 5 October 1984, Page 12

Carter H. pursues Aust, addition

PA Auckland Carter Holt Holdings, Ltd, has made a $NZ44.5 million offer for Southern Australia Perpetual Forests Group, of Adelaide, through its Australian subsidiary, Carter Merchants (Australia) Pty, Ltd.

Carter Holt’s executive chairman, Mr R. M. A. Carter, said the takeover was to add to the value of the total forests controlled by the group and to make use of other resources in the region. The products would be compatible with both domestic and international markets and there would be a big move to export markets, he said.

The forest consisted of 21,235 ha of Pinus radiata, 50 jer cent of which was beween 15 and 35 years old.

The plantations in South Australia were on freehold areas (6254 ha and leasehold (4427 ha and in Victoria the freehold areas covered 9589 ha and leasehold 8933 ha. The main centre for the Australian forestry group was at Tarpeena, near Mount Gambier, South Aus-

tralia, 450 km from Melbourne, 425 km from Adelaide, and 120 km from the deep-water port of Portland. It runs two sawmills with a capacity potential on an all-kiln-dried, sawn basis of 70,000 cu m a year, and it also produces about 60,000 tonnes of radiata chips annually. There was potential for adding value to the exporting chips and flitches through Portland and later making a more sophisticated conversion of products, Mr Carter said.

In the last year, Carter Holt had developed a sawmill at Mount Gambier and also established export markets for sawn flitch and radiata chips. Currently exports through Portland total sAust7M a year.

In making the offer for the forestry group, Carter Holt strongly believed the proposal was beneficial to both the Australian and New Zealand firms, Mr Carter said.

There was a shortage of standing timber to support

an immediate, large-scale , conversion of timber into • products in New Zealand, .' which could be overcome by using the Australian group’s forests.

This would enable the group to bring forward further product concepts of conversion within the present limited New Zealand resource availability, he said.

This approach, when combined with using all the group’s, forest resources in the South Australian and Victorian regions, would provide for a significant timber product operation in the two states.

The arrangements were to finance the offer totally within Australia, and that there was no necessity to raise further capital or borrowings within New Zealand.

Carter Holt had given notice to the Foreign Investment Review Board of its proposals, which were all subject to appropriate consents being obtained from the board and also to the obtaining of any other Government consents.