Trans Tasman looks to the waterfront

By ANNE GIBSON

Trans Tasman Properties has announced a move to buy large chunks of Auckland's waterfront and plans for a high-rise apartment tower in the city.

Trans Tasman chairman Don Fletcher also told shareholders at the company's AGM in Auckland on Friday that negotiations were under way to buy into Clearwater, a large Christchurch property project.

On April 8, Trans Tasman's majority shareholder, SEA Holdings, made a full takeover offer for the shares it does not own, a deal which has been rejected in an independent report as neither fair nor reasonable.

Fletcher announced a turnaround on Trans Tasman's stated strategy to sell its Shortland/Fort St development site where it once planned a high-rise office tower and said it was now seeking planning approval for a 180-unit apartment tower. The former Auckland Star site is a car park.

While announcing these moves, Fletcher told shareholders that Trans Tasman had been actively moving away from passive property investment in Australia and New Zealand to focus on higher-risk, higher-return investment and development in the Australasian and wider Asia/Pacific regions.

This year, Trans Tasman had sold 12 sites at its Airpark 2 complex near Auckland International Airport, bought a Hong Kong retail complex for $8 million, entered a conditional agreement to sell the Fletcher Challenge complex at Penrose for $72 million and entered into a conditional contract to sell Citibank Centre, Auckland, at slightly above book value, Fletcher said.


Trans Tasman owned the leasehold interest in 26,000sq m of land in the Viaduct Harbour/Western Reclamation area of Auckland and had preliminary plans to develop a mixed use, commercial, industrial, retail and residential precinct on the land over the next five years.

But the company wanted more land on the waterfront, he said.

"Ports of Auckland has made public [its] plans to sell surplus port land. Trans Tasman is interested in purchasing ports land including the Western Reclamation and Queens Wharf", if it becomes available.

Trans Tasman Properties was in negotiation with the owners of the Clearwater Business Park and residential development in Christchurch to buy "a significant interest in this successful and ongoing project", Fletcher said.

The company was looking to focus more on Asia, which offered "liquidity and considerable speculative buying opportunity".