Agria ‘unfairly beaten up’, hotelier bolsters Queenstown resort, science advice for Fonterra and ‘flawed’ office space figures

PGG Wrightson’s new chief executive Mark Dewdney says cornerstone shareholder Agria has been “unfairly beaten up” over its PGW stake.

In today’s National Business Review Print edition he also rubbishes the idea PGW’s intellectual property is under threat by working in China with Agria.

Business editor Duncan Bridgeman reports how a Taranaki-born former freezing worker-turned-hotelier has added a Queenstown hotel to the growing portfolio of 120 hotels, resorts and projects throughout the world his company manages.

Writing in her regular Heartland column, Waikato University agribusiness professor Jacqueline Rowarth says Fonterra should have taken immediate recourse in scientific and medical expertise to allay consumer fears over the botulism and DCD scares.

Shoeshine traces Fonterra’s structural decisions leading up to its recent record of mishaps and how it seemingly left its risk management behind.

Meanwhile, property editor Chris Hutching details why the government’s drive to radically cut office space for state workers might be based on flawed figures.

The spectre of rising interest rates hitting both bonds and equities is raised in a three-page special report on portfolio management and investment. The report showcases investment options for baby boomers considering how to wisely spend their cash piles.

Environment Minister Amy Adams explains the government’s RMA reforms to economics editor Rob Hosking – while commentators wonder, are they going far enough?

In Margin Call, editor-in-chief Nevil Gibson runs the rule over Port of Tauranga’s new tie-up with Timaru’s PrimePort – and suggests how it can succeed.

Neville Bennett, writing in Economically Speaking, outlines a potential class war in England over fracking – and notes a historical run-in with an irascible Brighton resident named Laurence Olivier.

Business Traveller, meanwhile, gets behind a US Justice Department decision to block an airline mega-merger and explains how it was grounded over a lack of evidence of benefits for the travelling public.

All in the National Business Review Print edition. Out now.