Lion buys back premium Auckland site

Plans for the old Lion Brewery site included shops apartments and offices. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Brewing firm Lion Nathan has taken back the 5.2ha Newmarket site it sold to an investment fund three years ago.

The company has acquired Great Northern Developments Limited (GNDL), the firm set up to redevelop the brewery site.

GNDL's sole assets were the Newmarket site, at Khyber Pass, as well as plans for its rezoning and development.

Before Lion Nathan's acquisition, GNDL was owned by the AMP Private Equity Real Estate Fund II (APEREF II) - an AMP Capital Investors-managed fund - and the UAE-owned Haumi Development Partnership.

The original plan was for a $1 billion project transforming the site into a "mini village" with dozens of shops, hundreds of apartments, large offices and even a high-rise retirement village.

Lion Nathan New Zealand managing director Peter Kean said: "Knowing the site well, having operated here since approximately 1860, we are confident that GNDL will be able to attract good investment interest and that ultimately the redevelopment of the site will be accomplished."

He said Lion Nathan would continue to transfer all of its operations to its recently commissioned Manukau site, in Ormiston Rd.

AMP Capital Investors said the strategy for the Newmarket site had been to attract new equity and finance to the project.

But when it became clear it would not be possible to secure the funding required for the development GNDL began a process to return the site to Lion Nathan.

The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed, but AMP Capital NZ Property Fund wrote down its investment in APEREF II to zero in March and expects no further impact.

The sale of the Khyber Pass Road property for $162 million was agreed in 2007 - before the global crisis obliterated credit and investors' appetite for risk.

Lion Nathan had received only a $50 million deposit.

The 2008 annual report of GNDL said a vendor mortgage of $122 million was due on September 26, 2010, and GNDL had total assets of $179 million.

Cameron Brewer, former chief executive of the Newmarket Business Association, said Lion Nathan's acquisition of the site was "great news".

The Newmarket Business Association had expressed a fear that Newmarket could be left with an abandoned site surrounded by graffiti-clad hoarding.

"With Lion Nathan now buying back the site, they will keep it as neat as a pin as they always have."

Bruce Whillans, one of New Zealand's top commercial real estate agents, said the Khyber Pass site's size and location made it one of the most promising for development in Auckland. It would not be used for manufacturing again.

"Newmarket's really moving ahead ... I think developers will take a lead from where AMP were going and create some sort of master plan."

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: NZPA