By GEOFF SENESCALL
New Zealand's best known ice-cream maker, Tip Top, is poised to return home.
It is understood that Kiwi Dairies is close to buying control of the Perth-based dairy and confectionary group Peters and Brownes, which owns Tip Top.
The deal could see NZ's second-biggest dairy company pay up to
$A208 million for the Australian company, which claims the No 2 position in the $A1.7 billion Australasian ice-cream market.
However, there are unsettled legal issues surrounding the ownership of Peters and Brownes. The issue apparently relates to a 50 per cent shareholding in the company, jointly held by group managing director Graham Laitt and financial partner Gad Raveh.
The balance of the shares are held by a range of institutional shareholders who have been waiting more than two years to see Peters and Brownes list.
It is believed that Kiwi Dairies may only achieve between 50 per cent and 75 per cent on first lick with its 285Ac a share offer.
Kiwi Dairies spokesmen could not be contacted last night to confirm the firm's interest in Peters and Brownes.
But it is understood to be looking to buy the asset to back into its subsidiary Mainland, which is the country's biggest domestic retailer of dairy products.
It is likely that Kiwi Dairies, which has more than $1 billion of equity, will finance the purchase through debt.
Kiwi Dairies is a cooperative owned by farmers. Earlier this year, it was involved in the ill-fated mega merger with rival manufacturing cooperative New Zealand Dairy Group.
Both parties have since been discussing alternatives to their integration with the exporting board in the mega co-op since the proposal collapsed.
Peters and Brownes bought Tip Top from Heinz Wattie in 1997. In doing so, the Australian company secured a 74 per cent slice of the New Zealand ice-cream market.
Tip Top was sold by Heinz after a failed bid to buy the business of United Dairy Foods, the maker of New American ice-cream products. An attempt to buy United Dairy Foods, a subsidiary of the New Zealand Co-operative, was also made when ownership changed to Peters and Brownes, but the Commerce Commission knocked it back.
