Rangiora poultry firm put in receivership

Press, 11 July 1986, Page 1

Rangiora poultry firm put in receivership

A Rangiora-based poultry firm employing more than 130 people is in receivership. Poultry Processors N.Z., Ltd, has been unable to refinance debts of $1.9 million owed to the. Westpac Banking Corporation. The loans fell due on Monday and the bank has appointed a receiver. Westpac’s public affairs manager, Mr Bill Day, said that the bank would not comment, because of the strict confidentiality of its dealings with customers.

However, the managing director of Poultry Processors, Mr Bert Miller, has accused the bank of not giving enough notice of its intention to call in the loan. The bank’s advice came in a letter received by the company late on July 2. The letter told Mr Miller that Westpac was declining an application for a further loan of $250,000, reminded him that the $1.9 million would fall

due on July 7, and said that a rollover (refinancing by Westpac) would not be approved. Mr Miller said that this gave only 3U working days to find the money from another source. The bank also advised Poultry Processors that, in its view, the company needed a "substantial capital injection.”

However, negotiations with two possible sources of capital had been in train, but the bank indicated last Friday that, in the absence of a binding commitment by Monday, it would call in the loan. A lawyer acting for Poultry Processors, Mr M. P. Boyce, said that the company’s liquidity problems stemmed largely from the interest rates it had to meet during last year. They averaged 27 per cent, and the company had budgeted on 19 per cent Mr Boyce believed that a receiver would try to trade the company out of difficulty.

Mr Miller acknowledged that there had been shortcomings in management, but he believed the present management, with its experience of the industry, had a better chance than a receiver of trading out of difficulty. Poultry rearing was highly complex, and a

"vocation” rather than an occupation, he said. The Poultry Processors group of companies has a valuation of $3.3 million on its assets of land and buildings. Mr Miller is the majority shareholder.

'rhe company runs seven farms, rearing turkeys, ducks, and chickens, and has another nine contract growers providing stock. The firm processes about 75 per cent of the turkey production in New Zealand and nearly all the ducks sold in supermarkets. It has between 15D,00C and 200,000 birds on its books.

lit also runs an abattoir and processing house at Rangiora, a second processing house in Auckland, and warehouses in Auckland and Wellington. Its products, sold under the “Tom Turkey” brand, include boned and stuffed turkey and chicken roasts, setisoned chicken portions, and cooked, lunch-eon-style chicken rolls.