Town welcomes sale

Press, 19 April 1989, Page 2

Town welcomes sale

PA Auckland Waiuku, home to New

Zealand Steel, has welcomed news that its largest employer has been bought out of financial limbo.

The company’s sale to China’s huge State-owned Minmetals Corporation marks the close of an era of uncertainty that began long before statutory managers were called in on its 80 per cent owner, Equiticorp. Although some Waiuku residents expressed reservations that the company had been sold into overseas hands, such misgivings were overtaken by relief that at least it now had, subject to statutory consents, a strong owner committed to its future.

The Mayor of Waiuku, Mr Kevan Lawrence, said yesterday the collapse of

Equiticorp had caused insecurity for the estimated 45 per cent of the town’s labour force that worked at the Glenbrook steel mill.

He said there had been a fear that the mill could have been mothballed. While some business people were reluctant to admit that recent uncertainty had eaten into sales, others were confident of trade picking up with the Minmetals deal.

A businesswoman, Elaine Pye, said her family’s curtain and linen shop, which she managed, had escaped a general downturn around town as it was relatively new.

But her husband’s furniture shop needed a boost, and word of the steel company sale had put a smile on his face “from ear to ear.”

The district assistant secretary of the Engineers’ Union, Auckland, Mr Peter Denny, said it was important for the mill to go to a “serious steel producer” this time rather than another investment company in the Equiticorp mould. The union, which represents half the mill’s 2000 workers, was not concerned whether ownership went overseas as long as the sale was to a large producer with international connections. The managing director of NZ Steel, Mr Lindsay Fergusson, said Minmetals representatives would arrive today to begin discussions on a wide range of details. Chinese company, page 39