The sale of Shell's New Zealand service stations to Infratil and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund may be weeks rather than months away.However, Infratil denies the petrol station brand name will change to Greenstone Energy, despite sources saying that
The sale of Shell's New Zealand service stations to Infratil and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund may be weeks rather than months away.
However, Infratil denies the petrol station brand name will change to Greenstone Energy, despite sources saying that email addresses for some Shell staff have already been switched to the new name, according to media reports.
Infratil chief executive Marko Bogoievski said "Greenstone" was the joint venture holding company name, formed to buy the Shell downstream assets.
The name would appear on letterhead and on invoicing for commercial customers in the interim and the Shell brand name would continue for some time, he said.
However, the company would drop the valuable Shell brand if there was a strong commercial reason for doing so, he said.
It was announced in early November that a consortium of Infratil and the superannuation fund had entered into exclusive negotiations with Shell over refining and downstream businesses.
The proposed transaction included a 17.1 percent stake in the New Zealand Refining Co, Shell New Zealand's supply and distribution infrastructure and its retail and business-to-business fuel business.
In December Infratil, the NZ Super Fund and Shell signed a letter of intent in December, giving a clear intention to buy the Shell petrol stations.
Now, Infratil hoped to complete the deal in weeks, not months, Mr Bogoievski said, and the deal was "progressing".
Infratil and the Super fund were doing detailed "transition planning".
Third party arrangements such as the many joint-venture arrangements dealing with the Marsden Point refinery in Northland, ports, terminals, coastal shipping, oil storage facilities, as well as inventory still had to be settled, Mr Bogoievski said.
