Lon Pac to expand in N.Z.

Press, 30 November 1989, Page 33

Lon Pac to expand in N.Z.

PA Auckland The chairman of London Pacific, General Dapo’ Hassan, says the company is looking to expand its New Zealand investments beyond integrated timber products to agricultural technology and food exports. After the first annual meeting since the company passed into Malaysian owners’ control last December, General Hassan said on Tuesday, the company believed there were opportunities to form joint ventures with farmers and agriculture-based companies to export to Asia. The company was already sounding out businesses in the Gisborne area, where

London Pacific is setting up its first New Zealand timber processing plant ready for production at the end of January. That operation is expected to bring in cash of $3 million next year, and the Matakana operations in the Bay of Plenty, $2.5M.

The company expects to make a profit of about SI.SM during the next six months. The general manager of London Pacific, Mr David Lee Siang Mun, said the company expected to finalise timber-supply contracts next week, which would secure long-term supply of logs to the former Pacific Pine Products mill at Gisborne. London Pacific, in a joint

venture with Japanese trading houses, proposes to build a S6M to S7M mobile port to load timber, and later woodchips, at Gisborne. The company would team up shipping with two other nearby sawmillers. The company is negotiating to buy a majority shareholding in Northern Pulp in Northland, where industry research suggests radiata forest harvests will rise during the next 10 years. The pulp plant is half owned by Equiticorp, in statutory management, and the MK Hunt Foundation. London Pacific now has direct links with Malaysian forestry companies. General Dapo' Hassan, is

also the chairman of Hak Holdings, his private company which holds a logging concession for 70,000 ha of rainforest timber from the Sarawak region of Malaysia. It also has holdings in Sabah, in northern Malaysia. London Pacific, through Hong Kong based subsidiaries, has exclusive marketing rights to the rainforest timber, most of which will be sold to Japan. The company says these rights would be worth S6OM over the next five years. Mr Lee said London Pacific stopped selling Malaysian timber to Europe after facing strong consumer opposition to timber sourced from scarce tropical rainforests.