By ANNE GIBSON
ING Property Trust's $282.7 million deal to buy 71 properties from private superannuation funds MFL and SIL was the largest foreign property deal approved in December.
An $80 million mobile phone deal was the next largest signed off by the Overseas Investment Commission.
B Digital, 88 per cent owned by
Australia's Seven Network, was cleared to buy Australia's Digiplus Investments which has national, international and mobile phone services and internet businesses.
A deal by global conglomerate Holcim, based in Switzerland, to buy more than 500ha of land from New Zealanders Wayne and Elaine Collie for $23.1 million was also approved. Holcim is one of the world's leading suppliers of cement and has aggregate, concrete and construction-related services.
The Collies own Atlas Resources, whose core business is the manufacture and distribution of ready-mixed concrete, the extraction and processing of aggregate and making pre-cast tilt slabs.
The commission said the deal would give Holcim 41 per cent of Atlas and strengthen a long-standing business relationship.
Australian hotel investment company BG Hotels was cleared to buy the Parkroyal Queenstown from the Asian-controlled Wedson Holdings for $22.1 million.
Global Technology Connection of the United States got approval to buy Eternal Water NZ for $4.6 million. The deal includes 16.1ha of Whakatane land which has a water spring, bottling and processing plant and warehouse.
The business is not yet operating.
Australia's Negociants - part of Samuel Smith & Son, a group collectively known for its Yalumba brand of the Barossa Valley - was cleared to buy the 20ha Beechwood Vineyard in Marlborough for $3.2 million.
