South Corp sells Embassy stake

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 27

South Corp sells Embassy stake

South Corp, the Dunedinbased investment company, has sold its one-third shareholding in Embassy Investments to another Dunedin investment company, Wilson Neill. South Corp negotiated a “satisfactory” cash price for the- shareholding, said the company's chairman, Mr Graeme Marsh. He said the company had intended keeping Embassy as a long-term investment. But the administration of Embassy’s offshore developments made it obvious one of the partners should acquire a major shareholding and assume full responsibility for the development of the company, he said. Embassy was established in July, 1987, as a joint venture between South Corp, Wilson Neill, and two Dunedin businessmen, Messrs Howard Paterson and John Martin. The joint venture had an initial capitalisation of $l5 million, and planned to invest in the Hawaiian property market. The Press Association reports that Wilson Neill now owns 90% of Embassy Investments. Mr Howard Paterson, Embassy’s executive director, retains the other 10% of the company.

Announcing the move, Wilson Neill’s managing director, Mr Colin Herbert, said taking control of Embassy was a strategic step in his company’s investment and trading activities in the United States. Controlling Embassy would give Wilson Neill a 90% stake in Blackfield Hawaii Corporation, a large property investor and developer, and a house builder, Mr Herbert said. Blackfield had been restructured since Embassy acquired it last October and it was aggressively developing its base in what continued to be an established market. In the year to date, Blackfield has constructed and sold 250 single family homes and planned to build and sell up to 500 homes in 1988-89. Mr Herbert said the administrative base and property expertise of Blackfields offered synergies with Wilson Neill’s direct property activities on the United States West Coast. Property projects there and in Hawaii were a growing part of Wilson Neill’s, development and profits from them were expected to be significant, he said. Blackfield had also started to market a number of products produced in Wilson Neill’s New Zealand export plants, Mr Herbert said.