The chances of the Hong Kong based Natural Dairy company passing the Overseas Investment Commission hurdles to allow it to buy the Crafar farms weren’t high to start with.
There’s even less chance now that the company front-woman May Wang has been bankrupted.
So who’s likely to buy the farms now?
It shouldn’t be Landcorp – it is one of the State Owned Enterprises giving a poor return on investment which was highlighted in a report on SOE performance released this week.
The best thing the receivers could do would be to stop trying to sell the farms as a single entity and offer them singly.
The rural real estate market is sluggish but the chances of attracting buyers able to buy single farms is far greater than finding someone willing and able to buy the lot.
Homepaddock 
Agree with most of your post Ele but would consider Landcorp as a buyer in current climate on the BINDING CONDITION that they then market all their holdings when the market recovers as they missed a great opportunity to sell off their land bank during the bull market in the time of the recent socialist regime who would not have seen that opportunity if it hit them on a pedestrian crossing, due to their blinkered policy position on state ownership and control. Too many in the Labour party and their allies are blind to the disasters that the Soviets and other socialists brought on their primary productive sector where the need to make profits and respond to market demands were removed from the system. Rural people died from starvation while working the land due to the stupidity and idealogical manipulation of state farming.
If even 1/2 the Crafar properties are really suitable for dairyfarming then there is money to be made here but I totally agree that the state should not be buying or farming in current times. The settlement policies of the years following WW 11 and then the closer settlements of the 60s and 70s had merit in growing our productive base but now those options have been well and truly overtaken by the market.
Landcorp’s productive returns and profitability are now seen as poor and that is being kind.
Is it a statuary requirement that the assets that the receivers control are being marketed as a whole or are they just being ignorant, as anyone with a basic understanding of real estate marketing knows that many smaller units are easier to sell than one or even a few very large ones, albeit messier and more expensive as to cost structures. If it is not required then the Marketing company is serving their principals very poorly indeed.
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Who cares?
The receivers will be operating the properties and presumably enjoying the fruits of a record dairy pay out.
Let the farms sell as individual units when willing buyers and willing bankers again are prepared to enter the market.
I doubt there is any requirement that they be sold as one unit. I reckon the receivers were conned into thinking they had a quick easy sale on their hands.
Instead they were left with fooyong all over their faces.
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Adolf, isn’t it the ‘banks’ enjoying the fruits you talk of. From my understanding of receivership the receivers get their fee regardless of results and those that call them in get their money back, and the party in trouble gets the crumbs – if any – which is unlikely as the receivers are only working for whoever calls them in.
Gd, I understand assets can be broken up to be sold at best advantage – not withstanding what I have said above.
I am not sure I agree with you that “the market is sluggish”.
I strongly believe it reflects the productive value more realistically and is not likely to return to levels seen at the peak for sometime.
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Fred – I am with Adolf. Receivers are even greedier than banks – they also have they advantage of firts dibs on the money as it come in.
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