Music icon Madonna will play in Auckland as part of her Rebel Heart Tour next year. Live Nation has taken over the management of Vector Arena and is promising more big concerts. Photo / AP
Music icon Madonna will play in Auckland as part of her Rebel Heart Tour next year. Live Nation has taken over the management of Vector Arena and is promising more big concerts. Photo / AP
The American business which next year brings Madonna to New Zealand for the first time now has approval to operate Auckland's Vector Arena.
And they are also promising to increase the number of shows there.
The Overseas Investment Office approved a deal for America's Live Nation Entertainment and Australia's MHCInvestments to buy all the shares of EVENZ which owns and controls a leasehold interest in the 2.3ha of Auckland waterfront land where Vector stands. Stuart Clumpas is the vendor.
Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour is at Vector on March 5 and 6 next year.
"Vector Arena was constructed and is operated under a development agreement with Regional Facilities Auckland. Vector Arena must be transferred back to Auckland Council after 40 years.
"The applicants are acquiring Vector Arena as part of an Australasian expansion strategy and plan to leverage their position in the live music industry to increase the frequency and scale of shows at Vector Arena.
"The applicants consider that owning Vector Arena will make bringing previously marginal/uneconomic shows to New Zealand possible," the decision just out said.
Live Nation NZ is indirectly 70 per cent owned by New York Stock Exchange-listed Live Nation Entertainment, one of the world's largest producers of live music, with the remaining 30 per cent owned by MHC, an investment vehicle of concert promoter Michael Coppel and Michelle Coppel.
Live Nation NZ's immediate 70 per cent owner is Ticketmaster NZ, the ticketing and events promotion business, which recorded a decline in operating profit before tax for calendar 2014 to $1.07 million from $1.86 million a year earlier.
The amount of money involved in the transaction has been kept a secret.
Vector Arena on Auckland's waterfront. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey
In other decisions, British, Irish and Scandinavian interests got consent to buy 501ha of Southern Canterbury farm land for a secret sum.
Consent was given for the sale of 301ha at 339 Pareora River Rd and a further 200ha at 557 Pareora River Rd to Craigmore Farming NZ Limited Partnership, half-owned by United Kingdom and Irish interests and 24 per cent owned by Continental European and Scandinavian interests.
Pareora is south of Timaru and north of Waimate.
Vendors Pareora Dairy and Somerset Dairy are 84 per cent owned by Forbes Herbert Elworthy who is also connected to the buyer, according to information on Craigmore Farming's web site.
"We are a specialist manager of farms in New Zealand. Established in 2008 by two NZ family farmers - Forbes Elworthy and Mark Cox - we now have a team managing a mix of dairy, grazing and horticultural farms spread over 15,000 hectares.
Our aim is to be a long term producer of high quality food products through farming the land sustainably and by partnering with the best operational managers in New Zealand," Craigmore says. Southern Pastures - 58 per cent Sweden and 22 per cent Luxembourg - got consent to buy 306ha of farmland at Rakaia Terrace Road at Hororata in Canterbury. The vendors are the kiwi-owned SR and RC Inch Family Trust.
"The applicant intends to convert two separate adjoining blocks, currently used for sheep/beef grazing, into a single irrigated dairy farm. The new dairy farm will be incorporated into and operated as part of the applicant's South Canterbury cluster of dairy farms," the consent form said.
