Fay threatens to stymie Crafar farm sale with legal action
The low-ball bidder for the Crafar farms group has threatened court action if a competing bid by a Chinese firm gets Overseas Investment Office approval.
A consortium fronted by controversial rich-lister Michael Fay said in a statement a judicial review would be sought if the OIO approved Shanghai Pengxin’s bid to take over the 24 dairy farms.
Spokesman for the Fay consortium Alan McDonald said: “The Overseas Investment Act does not permit consent to be granted for the acquisition of farm land by overseas persons with no relevant farming expertise. Shanghai Pengxin is a construction and property development company that has no expertise in dairy farming.”
The Crafar group went into receivership in late 2009 and attempts by receivers KordaMentha to dispose of assets by receivers have been torturous with this latest legal threat likely to drag the process out further.
A bid by the May Wang-fronted UBNZ funds management collapsed last year after Ms Wang was declared bankrupt and charged by Hong Kong authorities with corruption and money-laundering.
The bid by Shanghai Pengxin has been caught up in an extraordinarily long approval process at the OIO. The office normally seeks to reach decisions on whether to approve investments within 50 working days, but since Shanghai Pengxin filed their application last April, no announcement has been made.
Receivers have previously rejected the Fay consortium's bid as unacceptably low.
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Comments and questions54
Good stuff.
Hope the Chinese hits back -hard.
Then the whole world will get to hear about the great Fay Richwhite sell-off of NZ.
Perhaps Michael Fay should use Brian Henry (Winston's winebox lawyer) for the legal challenge, and seek a character reference from the wife of the late Donald Kincaid (the Levin draper who took Fay to task for insider trading in BNZ shares). That reminds me were Fay and Richwhite meant to hold lectures on insider trading in the settlement - dont recall any being run in the last ten years.
Hmm - Fay is trying to influence the outcome of a government process through publicising potential legal threats.
Wasn't it Michael Fay and Fay Richwhite that sold BNZ to the Australians ( National Australia Bank ) and Telecom and NZ Rail to the Americans.
Isn't his recent action hypocritical - or probably one of self interest rather than national pride and preservation.
A bit of a joke really
The only thing Fay needs to do is to raise his offer so the receivers can close the deal. Everything else he said or did is just his self-interest, not national interest.
Bo-Hoo Bo- Hoo
NZ just wont play my $ game any more
Must be MY past reputation of riipping
OFF The NZ Tax payers
Just pay the price if you want the farms or
The Chinese WILL
SIR Michael FAY - like in the UK with SIR Fred of RBS where Parliamentarians are looking to strip the hypocrite off his knighthood, it's time for NZ to consider the same with this ultimate hypocrite.
No other person has sold NZ so short for private gain as he has - Telecom, Winebox, BNZ, TranzRail and these are the ones we know about.
Fay has the hide of an elephant.
He is trying to steal Crafar farms to recover the $20m paid to settle the insider trading case on TranzRail.
And he will say anything, do anything and involve anyone of his ilk to achieve his aim.
Time for John Key to show some leadership.
perhaps a ruse by the chinese to chase us teary eyed into their open arms
haha Fay what ever works ha!!!
Come on Matt this is boring, i prefered hearing about what old Serepisos is up to!!
The seminar was run as required (only one in fact). It was chaired by an Australian High Court (equivalent to our Supreme Court) judge, Justice Michael Kirby. I actually delivered a paper to the seminar, and Justice Kirby rermarked in response top my paper that under our securities legislation at the time, any director of a listed company that represented another listed company on the board of that listed company would heve to be nuts!!!
why is everyone getting stuck into Michael Fay? He's just part of a consortium and didn't even issue the statement about legal challenge,
why is everyone getting stuck into Michael Fay? He's just part of a consortium and didn't even issue the statement about legal challenge,
The 'low ball' offerer was firstly Landcorp with a dismissive $150m to the receiver. Landcorp now wants to lease the farms from the Chinese.
Chinese money, Landcorp management and potential upside with chinese future value add production of the raw milk
Or Michael Fay and the Maori consortium buying at a discount and flicking it on at a profit in the short term.
Only one choice really and it's not Fay and his greedy cronies using Chinese ownership as some sort of scare tactic.
All this shows is that Fay is " yesterdays " model. The global economy is moving towards Asian global domination because the USA and Europe destroyed their economies allowing greed for the privelged few.
Fay is still obviously living in the old world
Agree with traveller - why get stuck into Michael Fay? The legal challenge is nothing to do with Michael Fay's greed. He's heading a consortium of NZers to buy Crafars' farm. The judicial review is about the OIO's lack of transparency about how it makes it processes applications.
Agree with traveller - why get stuck into Michael Fay? The legal challenge is nothing to do with Michael Fay's greed. He's heading a consortium of NZers to buy Crafars' farm. The judicial review is about the OIO's lack of transparency about how it makes it processes applications.
Why get stuck into Michael Fay?
Because this is the latest attempt from him and HIS consortium to try and scuttle the $200m plus offer from the Chinese to buy the Crafar farms.
Previous attempts include getting some Maori interests on board, attacking Landcorp for being part of the Chinese deal, leaking fictitious data on Lancorp's financial commitment on the deal and now, questioning why the Chinese should obtain OIO approval.
Question : Where was he when the Germans bought all the dairy farms they did in the last 2 years? And the Germans are passive investors.
Answer : Nowhere. His interest here is to buy the farms at over $30m less than what the Chinese are prepared to offer.
BTW - if you believe that he has a bit role only in the consortium, you will also believe he settled $20m on the insider trading charge on TranzRail because he is a generous man of integrity.
-
Mr Fergusson, I assume you still believe that Mr Brash was justified in increasing interest rates and keeping them high during the Asian financial crisis?
When all the other Central Banks were cutting interest rates?
And the double dip NZ recession was inevitable?
At least we do not have that other insider trader, Mr Kerry Hoggard, fronting up again to head an attempt to keep NZ farms in NZ hands!
Birds of a feather, they flock together.
Focus on the main problem here. Ìt's all about the OIO's inefficiency (delays) and lack of transparency when processing aplications. Then OIO gets govt funding i.e. taxpayers' money of $2.6 million in 2010/2011 and $2.8 million for 2011/2012 on top of application fees of about $4 million to process applications from foreign investors. Surely as taxpayers who are funding the OIO we are entitled to know how they process applications. This judicial revew is to legally force the OIO to reveal how it processes applications - transparency is required as the OIO has the significant power to affect NZ's economy through its decisions to approve or decline applications and in its recommendations to Ministers.
Mr Fay bought TranzRail on the basis of expertise being brought in by the Americans.
He also bought Telecom with expertise from the Americans.
History records that the Americans raped and pillaged both companies, and left them in distressed state - high debts and operationally, backwards.
Now he would have us believe that he actually knows who can bring in expertise on farming!
Well, it ain't him!
So why has Mr Fay not challenged other applications before?
Like the Germans buying NZ farms?
And the lawyers are laughing all the way to their posh residences, expensive cars and overseas holidays.
Remember BNZ.
Mismanaged and sold to foreign interests whilst under Sir Michael Fay care.
Wow!
This Michael Fay character must be counting upon New Zealanders having short memories!
Who asset stripped Tranzrail Mr Fay and what about the winebox.
I wonder why there is no news and comments on this subject from the Great Old Man, Winston.
Would there really have been so much ranting here if Michael Fay was not involved in this case? Most probably, not. So, forget Michael Fay who is only part of a consortium and not the sole prospective buyer .
It is not Fay and his consortium alone who are protesting the sale of the Farms. A lot of people are protesting about the sales of a big block of farms to foreign interests, while there are local interests in them.
Now OIO's transparency has also come into the picture and has rightly became another issue. Tax payers have all the rights to know about the process and how they work. In addition, we have all the rights to know why in this particular case a process which normally has to take about 50 working days has now taken 9 months. The OIO is a tax payer funded entity, hence answerable to the public demands.
Perhaps due to the controversy shrouded this case since its inception, the most Honourable Offer that Shanghai Pangxin Group can make, as it has to make a final offer by the end of this month, is to withdraw its bid and think of buying dairy farms in other countries where China has great existing interests there, particularly in Africa, eg South Africa where its President is very much China-friendly. Alternatively they can choose some South American countries, eg Brazil/Chile where Chinese have huge investments. A bunch of controversial farms is not worth tinting the goodwill of a multi-billion dollars conglomerate. Pingxin’s reputation and goodwill is more important and not worth this controversy.
The Doctor has it spot on.
But let Michael Fay make his challenge. It will generate some massive fees for the legal fraternity and that profession needs a boost.
Also, the OIO could do with a review.
Not possible to take Fay out of the equation, as his background shows him to be a cunningly despicable hypocrite who will twist anything in his own favor.
Oh well, Winston has his first major opportunity to take the high ground :
1. Highlight the hypocrisy of Michael Fay & his Maori stooges,
2. Highlight the risk of NZ being taken over by the yellow peril,
3. How NZ First is the only Party without any connections to Fay Richwhite
All done under Parliamentary privilege, of course!
Stiassny justs needs to get off his lazy butt and sell the farms off one by one.
Hasn't he creamed enough off the top of this fat cow already?
Kick the thing into touch and break it up already ... it was never a conglomerate just a bunch of recently acquired farms.
You mean just like Carter Holt trying to sell its farms off one by one? With bugger all success?
And it's the banks paying Stiassny - not taxpayers or anyone else.
You mean just like Carter Holt trying to sell its farms off one by one? With bugger all success?
And it's the banks paying Stiassny - not taxpayers or anyone else.
DOH!
The receivers are creaming it and it is not the banks paying them. Their fees are a tax on the " Crafar farms", and I'll warrant that they are a bigger tax on the farms than what the Crafar family was.
The farms should have been liquidated in the same financial climate as existed when the creditors booted the Crafars.
It is an affront to natural justice that they were not.
HELP!
The deluded Mr Morrison makes an appearance!
Get ur "dragon" nic barred? :)
Hehe.
Affront to natural justice?
To sell the farms when there were no buyers around and farm prices were down 40%?
Good one!
Crafar was also a major party to the arrangement and he was made to take a bath, so it would seem to me the lenders then should've liquidated all assets that they took over.
What is good for the borrower surely is good enough for the lender?
Sure it can be said, (and I agree) the borrower borrowed with his eyes wide opened and he must take the consequences.
But the lenders also lent with their eyes wide open and natural justice suggests to me that the whole operation should've gone on the block immediately they pulled the pin on the Crafars.
silly boy
So says Mr Morrison, the man who obviously believes in buy high, sell low.
Good one!
Amazing how NZ can produce such geniuses as Mr Morrison! No wonder the country has gone from 1st world to 2nd world in such a short period in time!
The receiver of BNZ obviously followed the advice of Mr Morrison and sold BNZ to NAB for less than $1 billion, and BNZ now produces a profit of over $500m a year for NAB.
Agree with Anon - good one!
For goodness sake do your arithmetic!!
The sell price and it's earnings/use since sell date, has to be in the equation. Maybe it's making more where it is working now than what it would've done if it had stayed in BNZ.
NZ has just got too many financial illiterates.
And "thank god for that" says Winston, "otherwise nz first wouldn't get any votes".
Property sold by receiver to Canadian interests in 1992 for $35m. Today it's worth over $120m, and the yield is still over 7%. Was a DFC funded building in Wellington.
Yes - receivers should always sell immediately after taking control. Good one!
Michael Stiassny has got his strategy spot on - he has maximised the sale price which is what he is paid to do. It is not his job to not sell to Chinese investors or any other nationality that some others have issues with.
I admire him for not folding and selling to Fay and his cronies.
DOH
He hasn't sold a darn thing.
He's milking it.
And he should get what Crafar got.
Coming back to the issue and ignoring the idiotic rantings of the likes of Mr Morrison : Mr Fay trying to influence the outcome and price of the sale of an asset by using threats.
Mr Fay seems to still live in lala land. Has he not noticed that no profile politicians and government ministers want to be seen anywhere near him?
What a loss of face!
It will be fascinating how the OIO rule on this one now that it has been disclosed that the China government practically owns the bidder! FTA and the pre-dominance of agriculture as a mainstay of the China economy are factors which the OIO will have to consider.
Mr Key will not want to go to the next APEC meeting in China and gets asked awkward questions. Question like why are German passive investors allowed to buy over $200m of dairy farms if the Pengxin bid is rejected.
Notice how quiet Fed Farmers and Kerry Hoggard are this time round?
Read and weep, Mr Fay and Hardie Peni - you are both nobodies, compared to the might of China.
Especially after all the hypocrisy shown by Mr Fay.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10780071
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