Brewing venture off

Press, 11 December 1989, Page 13

Brewing venture off

NZPA Sydney Bond Corporation and Lion Nathan have abandoned their original plan to form a brewing joint venture through the Bond subsidiary, Bell Resources, but are continuing negotiations for an alternative proposal. Friday was the fifth selfimposed deadline for the embattled Bond Corp to have fulfilled one of the steps to ■ the complex deal by registering Part A takeover documents for buying out Bell Resources’ minority share-

holders. Bell Resources, which has already paid a sAustl.2 billion (SNZI.6B) deposit for Bond’s brewing businesses, was to have been transformed into a joint venture ' between Bond and Lion . Nathan to own the Australian brewing assets. But in a brief statement to the Australian Stock Exchange on Friday night Bond said that it had agreed With Bell Resources and Lion Nathan that the conditions set in September to form the

joint venture could not be fulfilled.

The companies would therefore seek no further time for satisfying the conditions. “However, the parties have agreed that they will not exercise the rights of termination which have now arisen, pending the outcome of'further negotiations presently being pursued between Bond and Lion on-an alternative brewery joint venture proposal,” the statement said.

Simsmetal, of Christchurch, has its own voracious “Jaws.” The scrap metal firm (formerly Ivan Steer Metals) has just obtained these hydraulic shears from America. They are fitted to a hydraulic excavator. The shears munch through 16in I-beams with 800 tonnes of sheer pressure.

The chopping up by the shears is an early stage in processing the scrap. The equipment is an indication of the growing competition in the metal recycling business in New Zealand, especially from Simsmetal, a Mel-bourne-based subsidiary of Elders Resources NZFP. One of the next features for Simsmetal is likely to be a plant for shredding car bodies. Controlling the shears in the picture is Rod Travis, of Simsmetal.