By ANNE GIBSON
The biggest deal in the April round of decisions from the Overseas Investment Commission was Natural Gas Corporation's $92.5 million sale of the Cobb hydro station near Nelson to TrustPower, which is 20 per cent Australian owned and 23.8 per cent American owned.
GE Capital, the global group
that last year acquired the AGC finance business from Westpac, gained approval to buy AMP Bank's portfolio of loan receivables and securities. GE Capital is wholly owned by GE of the United States.
Britain's HSBC received permission to buy AMP Bank's residential mortgage and retail deposit portfolio.
ING Retail Property Fund Australia was cleared to buy Dunedin's Meridian Centre from Arthur Barnett Investments for $52.6 million.
Robert and Patricia Gussin of the US will buy 15.6ha of Marlborough land for $3,459,375. The land is for grape growing.
Animal health biotechnology company DEC International NZ, 67 per cent owned by DEC of the US, has permission to buy land at 26 Waipareira Ave in Auckland's Henderson for $2 million.
Soren Eich of Denmark was cleared to buy 4ha of land in the Nelson area for $1,450,000. A tourism/vineyard business will be run from the property.
Jan Kingma of the Netherlands received permission to buy 255ha of Southland dairy land for $1,125,000.
Japan's Juken Nissho was approved to buy 559ha of Wairoa land for $1,068,750 from Awaho Farms. The agricultural property will be planted in trees, which will be processed at a Gisborne mill. Juken Nissho can also buy a further 417ha of land in the same area for forestry.
Blakely Pacific of the US was cleared to buy 3628ha of land near Waimate in the South Island from Ngai Tahu Property Group for a confidential amount. Blakely wants to expand the forestry business there.
Japan's Nikken Foods is buying more land near Oamaru.
Two sales of Ngaruawahia land were approved, as was China's Xian Zhang's application to buy 6.5ha of Ardmore land for $522,000 and convert the grazing block into a market garden business.
