BIG BUSINESS DEAL

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 10473, 31 December 1927, Page 9

BIG BUSINESS DEAL

SAMOAN TRADING INTERESTS

CHANGE HANDS

O. F. NELSON. LTD., SELT, TO ENGLISH SYN DI.CATE.

(.Special to the Times.) AUCKLAND, Dee. 30

Important Pacific trading interests change hands with the sale to an English syndicate of the oldestablished business of 0. F, Nelson, Ltd., of Samoa. Hard on the heels of recent developments, the transaction suggests a sensational sequel to the announcement of Air. 0 ! . F. Nelson’s deportation from Samoa, but the fact is, says the Sun, that negotiations for the sale had been in progress for the past year of two. When Air. Nelson was last in Now Zealand in July’, lie discussed with certain Auckland businessmen a proposition which would have turned the concern over to a New. Zealand syndicate in which Auckland commercial interests would have been represented. The English syndicate, however, has forestalled the New Zealand enterprise, and to ,such purpose that a deposit has already been paid. It is believed that the price paid for the business was £150,000, and that Lever Brothers, the millionaire soap manufacturers, fife' interested- in the purchase. The Nelson business, which has a paid up capital of £150,000. all in the family, was founded toward the end of last, cen-tury--by the Hon. O. F. Nelson’s father, a Swede, who married a Samoan woman.