Farms bidder property mogul

Some of the land on the Crafar farms. Photo / Christine Cornege

The man leading the latest bid to buy the 16 Crafar dairy farms amassed a fortune on the Shanghai real estate market in the 1980s and 1990s and was included in last year's Forbes list of the "400 richest Chinese".

Forbes valued the personal wealth of 48-year-old Jiang Zhaobai - chairman of Shanghai Pengxin Group, which receivers KordaMentha this week confirmed had put in an offer for the North Island farms - at US$550 million ($711.2 million).

That ranked him 293rd on the list, down from his 61st ranking in 2008.

The new bid comes after Hong Kong company Natural Dairy and its sister firm, New Zealand-based UBNZ Asset Holdings, had its Overseas Investment Office (OIO) application to buy the Crafar farms declined because its directors and frontwoman May Wang failed in a "good character" test.

Brendon Gibson of KordaMentha said the Pengxin offer was "by far the best offer we have and it is now a matter of waiting for OIO approval".

The Crafar farms went into receivership last year owing about $200 million to PGG Wrightson and its banks.

According to the website of the American Enterprise Centre - a venture Jiang established last year - the Pengxin chairman began his working life in construction engineering before founding his own real estate firm in Shanghai and Guangdong province in 1988.

That business thrived, leading to the establishment of Pengxin in 1997, which remains privately owned today and claims to be worth more than US$2 billion.

The Shanghai-based company, with more than 4000 employees, has four business arms reaching into property development, infrastructure, mining and agriculture.

Its investments already stretch far from China's shores, including soybean, corn and sorghum farming in Bolivia and a majority stake in a copper mine in the Congo.

Pengxin has 650ha of land on Chongming Island, near Shanghai, and 950ha in northeastern China's Shandong province, which the company says is "mainly devoted to sheep breeding".

Federated Farmers Dairy chairman Lachlan McKenzie said the fact the firm did not have any experience in dairy farming would not become a hindrance should its bid to buy the Crafar farms be successful.

"We've got all of [the experience] here - they'll just buy it in New Zealand," McKenzie said. He said the fact another Chinese bidder was in the running for the farms was "a symptom" of this country's Government being too big, and taking capital away from the private investment sector.

Jiang said Pengxin expected to lodge its application with the OIO before the end of March.

He did not give any further details, but said China - with well over a billion mouths to feed - was already a large market for New Zealand with "huge and exciting future potential for mutually beneficial co-operation between the two countries".