Hospitality group Savor has entered into an agreement with Cooper & Company for a new site in Britomart, with the first new entertainment offering expected to open mid-year.
As part of the arrangement, Savor has agreed an early exit of the lease of the Seafarers Building, resulting in the closure of the MoVida and Bar Non Solo businesses.
Savor’s lease of the Seafarers Building was due to expire in November this year and the company has redeployed the affected staff across its other venues.
The impact of the lease changes will be accretive to both Group revenue and profitability on an annualised basis, i
Meanwhile, the company said it had seen improved trading in the last quarter of last year. Where revenue was down 8% in the year to August, by the end of December revenue was only down 5% as compared to the previous year.
"Revenue for the month of December was within 1% of the prior year, demonstrating the continued recovery of the market as a whole."
No formal guidance was given.
New Zealand Sugar Company, trading as Chelsea Sugar, has been fined $149,500 for manufacturing, distributing and selling sugar products contaminated with lead four years ago.
During November and December 2021 Chelsea Sugar recalled thousands of packs of sugar products due to the potential of low level lead contamination. A second recall was required after incorrect information was issued.
In May last year Chelsea Sugar pleaded guilty to two charges which included breaching its National Programme designed to manage any food risk to consumers, as well as negligently endangering, harming, creating, or increasing risk to consumers by distributing its product.
A sentencing hearing took place in the Auckland District Court in September with the decision released today.
NZ Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said, “offending at this scale is rare, and the Court’s sentence today sends a strong message that it will not be tolerated.”
The fast-track legislation comes into effect today, with those projects already on the fast-track list able to now apply for consideration by an expert panel. Other projects can now also enter the fast-track process by first going to Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop for consideration. Bishop said the change coming into effect today meant that at last the Government could begin to get moving on growing the economy and sorting out the infrastructure deficit. He said before lodging applications projects must consult with relevant administering agencies, including local bodies, any relevant iwi authorities and hapu and Treaty settlement entities. Retired Environment Court judge Jane Borthwick has been appointed expert panel convenor, along with associate panel convenors Helen Atkins and Jennifer Caldwell. They will appoint expert panels to deal with individual applications.
Mercury Energy is still pursuing legal action over an outage at its Kawerau geothermal plant in 2021.
High Court proceedings between Mercury subsidiary Kawerau Geothermal and Japanese geothermal plant developer Sumitomo Corporation were continuing on Friday.
A Mercury spokesperson said the court date was “a procedural step in a claim that insurers are pursuing following an insurance claim that Mercury made as a result of a failure at the Kawerau geothermal station in 2021”.
Mercury received an initial insurance payment of $26 million in 2022 and recognised a further $17m last year. The company said in its 2024 annual report it expected to receive more insurance proceeds in 2025 “once the total loss to the Group as a result of the incident has been confirmed”.
The 100MW plant failed on June 7, 2021, for an outage that lasted 44 days and reduced output by 80GWh. Mercury said at the time the financial impact of the outage was exacerbated by high spot prices.